'Scuse Me Whilst I Continue Blooming :3

If you were 12 and could see yourself now, do you think you'd be happy or disappointed, and why?

(prompt from livejournal.com)

Yes yes yes! I would be, and am, SO proud of where I am right now in comparison to where I was. As a naiive twelve/thirteen year old girl I was pained in ways I couldn't even describe. Who I was, wanted to be, tried to be... all of these selves were frozen in a bitter permafrost of the heart.

Wounded by life, a chip on my shoulder and a thorn in my side - I refused to grow. As a small vulnerable bud of potential that should have been taking in the nutrients to bloom, instead I had severed my own roots; I was curled under the forest brush, hiding from the life-giving sun,  rejecting the nourishing rain poured over my foliage from caring sources. I shriveled under the pressure and pain and prospect of feelings. Life was a burden.

At the time I never thought that I would overcome those feelings, I thought they would destroy me. I was so focused on the cold wind blowing through the cracks in my heart and ego that I couldn't even summon enough courage and energy to pick myself up off the floor. I couldn't find the light.

I didn't have any strength of heart or spirit or body, but I did have one small lump of hope that I was somehow able to muster; hope was the one thing that was never fully extinguished in me. I held fast to that tiny glowing spark inside me and slowly cultivated it - I cocooned myself for about five years until I'd manifested enough light to power my soul into action. I set upon the work of fixing and tuning all my broken parts, all the little pieces that refused to let me work as a  whole.

Somehow - 'somehow', because I can barely believe it myself - I finally began to bloom. With the combination of reaching out, tirelessly feeding my soul, never ever fully losing hope, and releasing creativity into the world, I was able to unfold petal after petal from my blossoming self.

I'm still fighting to bloom today - there are still petals to unfurl, but I still have my hope and I've acquired more than just that along the way: I've learned hurt, trust, love, pain, feeling, hiding, growing, being, invisibility, radiance, adoration, humiliation, laughter, sadness, tears, secrets, waking, living, breathing, sleeping, needing, wanting, and so much more. And it's all beautiful; good and bad. I'm blooming into the reality of life. And twelve year old me certainly approves.