Earlier today I worked on a Christmas project, which I dubbed “The Craft Box Project“. When I finished painting and designing a few boxes, I sat down to blog about it and wrote about how my love for boxes grew even more when I went through a dark night of the soul. However, just as I was heading off to bed, a sudden memory came rushing in, almost like a freight train slamming into me. All remnants of sleep and tiredness were suddenly gone as I found myself literally breathless with the intensity of the memory that just hit me, and the realization that this was not the first time I did a whole craft box project. I had forgotten because it was hidden so deeply in storage, but I once made a box to chronicle a very important journey I went through, my metamorphosis as I called it.

I’ve never kept it a secret that I have battled obesity all my life. A few years ago, I thought I had beat it. I had won in my battle with the bulge it after I dropped a whole lot of weight and was the thinnest I had ever been in my life. At that time, it wasn’t only the weight loss that had changed in my life, but I had also quit a job that wasn’t working for me, entered grad school, met my wise sage, and fell in love with the one I believed I would spend the rest of my life with.

As part of my process of change, I began to embrace my essence word as my Clinical Psych professor, Bobby Mendoza (again, here is some random bit of snynchronicity this evening: this blog was born on the day Sir Bob passed on…he was a catalyst for this journey and now….*sigh*) “butterfly”. For me, the butterfly symbolized who and where I was at that point in my life’s journey. Not long after that, I enrolled in a Group Therapy class where I first got to know Seann, my sage. Throughout the trimester, I began to get to know myself better and as part of our work in class, we had to keep journals and given that I have always been the type to write in prose, I had a whole series of essays from that time in my life. At the end of the term,  we were told to make a project about our journey through group therapy. And that’s where my first ever box was born.

In life, we do things... Some, we wish we had never done & some we wish we could replay a million times. But, they all make us who we are & in the end, they shape & detail us. If we were to reverse them, we wouldn't be the same person we are today. So just live. Make mistakes. & have wonderful memories. But, never second guess who you are, where you've been, & most importantly where you're going.

Inside the box I had made an installation (errr…I think that’s what it’s called) of the butterfly’s metamorphosis.

And to wrap things up, I wrote this essay about it: (note: this is kinda edited because the post will be way too long if I don’t!)

Isn’t it amazing how such an ugly creature like a caterpillar can bloom into the most beautiful butterfly? When I was younger, I was such an ugly caterpillar…grossly obese, bad hair…I could go on forever! But today, after a three-year cocoon-weaving metamorphosis, I am 70 pounds lighter and in control of who I am and what I have become. It took the strangest of situations for me to find the courage to make a change in my life but slowly I emerged from my chrysalis and gingerly spread my fragile wings and soared. It sure wasn’t easy but I made it through.

I guess the hardest thing we go through in life is change. Much like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar, we go through stages of change…of ups and downs, happy times and sad times, times ugliness and beauty, and of triumphs and defeats. After all of this, we can come out in two ways: battered and broken, or triumphant and victorious. Going through change is the only constant thing in our lives. Oftentimes it happens when were not ready for it…and this leaves us feeling trapped in a vortex that sucks us dry. Something we’re caught in and cannot pull ourselves out of. This was true for me, and for a long time, I felt powerless. But then, it hit me that it’s all a matter of perspective. The way we see change and perceive its consequences all lies within the way we look at things. If we decide to look at it as a hopeless, endless road of pain and suffering, that’s what we end up with, but if we embrace change and welcome its rewards, we too will be rewarded with peace, comfort and wisdom.

Like the butterfly, my  metamorphosis has been long and painful. In many ways, it wasn’t something I chose to do. Why would I leave the comfort of my safe and warm cocoon for an outside world that is not necessarily kind, especially to those like me? Letting go of something I have been so used to and comfortable with was not an easy thing to do. The uncertainty of what comes next was an overwhelming thought in itself…more so that I had to actually go through it. In the end, I may not have consciously made the choice to welcome change, but through circumstance I accepted it and it not just made me beautiful on the outside, but on the inside as well. From such an ugly, 225-pound shell I broke through, not as perfect as I’d like to be, but triumphant and strong. I’ve been through the best of times and the worst of times. I’ve seen my dreams shatter and I’ve felt my heart tumble. I have seen everything I held on to swept away with the tides. At first, it devastated me and broke my spirit. The change was overwhelming…and somehow, one day at a time, I survived. But after all that, I realized one thing was gone…the unwillingness to accept what came with change. I won’t deny that I still struggle with letting go of the security that a “comfort zone” can bring, but now I know that I can fly high and soar above the winds of change that blow my way.

And so as I go through my metamorphosis…this process called life…I’ll embrace these changes and no longer turn away from them. I’ll face them head on and more importantly, I’ll make sure I use them to bring out the real me. The tears that I cried have not been wasted…they have slowly stripped away the gray and bleak shades of sadness and in its place left a prism of hope, allowing my true colors to shine. And in the end, I will soar to heights I deserve

errr….

See why I’m so breathless with this sudden rush of memories? I kinda feel like I’ve suddenly gone full circle….like the box that was hidden away in storage, the Butterfly that was born out of that time kinda disappeared too. It was as if she went back into that cocoon of safety (aka the weight) where she felt safe and comfortable, especially after she found her wings burned by flames that came her way. Tattered and torn, she went back to what she knew.

But now that I am making my way back to becoming a “butterfly”, I know better how to not get too close to the flames that may cause me danger. As early as now, I have gotten singed every now and then, but I think I know how to get away from that now. And what helps, I know that I don’t have to fly alone and that there are so many wonderful reminders around me, be it people, things or even myself, to caution me when I get too close to harm’s way.