Devolving

By Denise Renée Purdie

I am devolving

Butterfly :: caterpillar

I bloomed much too soon

A while ago I asked a few friends if they’d gone to their prom as I wondered if it was true that some people peek in high school and the rest is just downhill. OK, transparent moment, I hoped that was true since despite being valedictorian, high school was not my favorite time. Out of my friend circle, only one person went to their prom and she is one of the kindest people I know. She’s also crushing it in the non-profit sector. She also loved high school. So much for my theory that people who didn’t peek in high school flower later ….

This all arose though from my feelings of ennui and the belief I have indeed already peeked, not in high school but in my 30s when I had home / hearth, a husband and a new lease on my academic and business life. Since then I’ve had some great achievements but that definitely felt like my pocket.

We cannot foretell the future but I’m definitely feeling I’m at one of my lowest points and I’m not quite sure how to pull myself out of the quagmire. I can only thank God for His strength because I feel very little. With that said, I do have a small hope that there can be multiple flowering periods and that even if it isn’t a rose, another flower may still smell as sweet.

Note: I think I wrote this on Mother’s Day, which is always a challenging day for me. I still believe this is true on an elemental level, but I’m doing much better today. In fact, my post today is going to be about a lesson I learned about love through observation. I thought about not posting this, but I frankly feel like transparency is a great superpower.

Keywords: transparency, devolving, nostalgia, introspection, hope, superpowers