"True peace is knowing yourself." Marine Ashnalikyan
I cannot say whether or not I've come to know myself at this moment in time. I have learned that one cannot hope to know all there is to know, especially if one lives in only one manner. Knowing one's self requires exposure to the elements.
For a long time I've lived this way, safe in a place where nothing can hurt me. There is value in this protection, I think. When there is a gaping wound in a person, the doctors give pain medications and numbing agents. These treatments are necessary for as long as it takes the person to heal. At some point, if we are lucky enough, the old wounds are gone and, although we are scarred, we have reached the resolution of matters that brought us pain.
Here I am, coming out of the fog that I've wandered in for the past twenty years of my life. The landscape has changed a lot. I'm finding that I know less about myself than I thought. I've been living safely, and experiencing very little of that which might help identify me as an individual. As I step forward into the light of morning, I cannot tell if I am changed, or revealed. Am I ashamed, or do I embrace the changes that come with growth? I do not know. There are many things I do not know about myself.
I do know that I am happy, for the first time in a very long time.
