My Phoenix

Twelve years ago, I journeyed to the Valley of the Sun to lose myself in the shadows. Phoenix, Arizona. The phoenix - the mystical bird that consumes itself in fire to rise from its own ashes, more evolved than before.

For twelve years, I've tried to figure out the significance of this creature in my life. And now I know.

I have always allowed myself to be consumed by my relationships. Lost myself in their identity. Pushed myself aside to please them. Certainly this is a fault that I see prevalent in many women today. And even men. Let me pause long enough to say that the only way the whole can ever be greater than the sum of its parts is if both parts bring themselves complete. This is far too often NOT what happens. We become a fraction of who we are, trying to fit into their ideals of who we should be. This is what happened to me - for twelve long years.

And then my being reached its burning point and I turned to dust. I was left feeling empty and drained and so far from who I was and who I was supposed to be. I had a choice. I could lay there in those ashes until the wind came and blew me away. Or I could rise.

So rise I did. And am still doing. I would not say I have fully evolved into my original form of a magical and mystical creature. But I am continuing to do so. Getting stronger and brighter and more beautiful on all planes of existence.

And sometimes he asks me...why. Why I can't give him one more chance. Why I won't let him back in. And this is what he fails to understand. Once you go through a metamorphosis, there is no going back. There are so many parts of you that are different from your former self that you can't even begin to think the same way. It would be like a butterfly trying to turn back into a caterpillar. It just doesn't work like that.

I've evolved. I'm becoming someone different, someone I was always destined to be. I've risen from my own ashes. And in my eyes, my new form is glorious.