internal summer
I’ve been greatly inspired by nature recently, which has helped me cope and maneuver through vastly challenging times over the past couple years.
With the hope of an internal summer awaiting on the horizon, I mistakenly gave way to a profound exhaustion that had burrowed deep within my heart over time.
I’d forgotten, as one of my greatest inspirers, Philippe Petit, once spoke:
You must take your last step as confidently as you had taken your first.
Seeing the sunlight glimmering on the horizon, I foolishly thought my elongated trial was over, neglecting the last few steps still needed to be taken ahead of me; I began to panic, not even giving myself a moment for a mere breath…slowly, then quickly, the light of hope for an internal summer began to fade.
I’m thankful to have come to the fruition recently that it’s the change and maintenance of weather that firstly indicates and preserves any season of enlightenment.
For you and me alike, the weather in question is our internal essence — our perceptions, beliefs about ourselves and the world surrounding, an understanding of what we want, how we wish to live, who we wish to be…
Which, I’m grateful to say has been vastly improved and more stabilized for myself recently.
However, after an elongated battle with borderline personality disorder and finding myself more on the side of healed along the spectrum, I craved serenity; I craved the essence of summer in its entirety — the lightness and warmth of vigor, appreciation, utilization, and innovation, of community and compassion, of basking and childlike wonder…
My weather changed, but there was still something missing; something that made me fall short in cultivating and sustaining warmth and enlightenment entirely.
The other morning, I sat beneath a bashful light of sun amidst a lively garden, and I realized…no tree nor flower before me gives off the impression that it’s autumn — the flowers still thrive in their vibrancy from two seasons ago, the trees still abundant in emerald, the birds and bees still gloriously enthusiastic…
— sure, the weather has finally permitted me to enjoy the outdoors for more than ten minutes, but what if, I thought, I’d not been outdoors recently to feel this serene weather change upon my skin?
How would I know its autumn seeing there only be evidence to the contrary?
It’s November, I answered myself.
It’s autumn because we, as a collective say it is; we bring life to the uncertain by mere acknowledgement of the endless possibility that it holds.
I didn’t believe, for a second, that I was permitted to bask — to set free my suffering and enjoy what has become of the healing…I kept fighting and pushing, trying, endlessly, to keep my head above illusioned waters; and in turn, exhaustion burrowed deeper and deeper within my existence.
So much so, I grew exhausted of the exhaustion.
What if I simply said it was summer (internally)?
What if I just gave myself permission to enjoy myself and make the best of everything I have and love now?
And the flowers within me lifted their heads once more to the sun, and the waters fluxed rapidly alongside the voluptuous tress dancing wildly to the symphony of wind…
To desire an internal season of summer is the first step.
To walk the line from autumn to spring — of setting free the countless things that drain you of energy, surrendering to a moment to understand oneself, and giving way to rebirth — is simply a necessary collection of others.
And to have changed one’s weather, to believe that what you want is possible to obtain, and to act confidently in that direction, is to give life to an everlasting summer.
