The Beauty of Self Part 1

I find beauty in almost all things.  In most people -- internal and external.  In nature -- from the broad palette of the sky overhead to the minutest of flora and fauna crawling and sprawling across the surface of the earth.  What others might overlook, a beetle intent upon hauling his newly discovered cache of discarded food or dropped animal waste, I catch and catalog in my memory banks, awed by the effort of one so small and common, incredulous as I contemplate the tiny but significant corner that this one creation fills with circle-of-life importance.  The melodic strains of a violin composition buried within the larger soundtrack of a film, the emotional movement of string across string, capable of playfulness, passion, the stirring of feelings thought long dormant.  A worn woman of indeterminate age whose youthful vitality has long since waned while her contemplation of youth itself remains a shadowy figure in a mind and body once wholly associated with active synaptic connections and ease of jointed motion.

The symphony of beauty inherent in daily life, that which surrounds us all whether we choose to bear it witness or not, comforts me.  Consciously.  Sub-consciously.  I am most grateful to its longstanding presence.  It moves me to prayer and connects me to the whole.  It evokes deep wells of gratitude within me which resonate from my core and ripple outward to crest upon the banks of everything and everyone around me.  Beauty exists as the jewels in the crown of my life.  The grace of Jesus sits as the center stone, the most precious of carbonized and faceted gems.  My husband and children, emeralds.  My siblings, rubies.  And the multi-hued brilliance of friends catch the light with topaz, lapis, amethyst, and turquoise.  A setting in precious metals, platinum, gold, silver, reflects art in its myriad forms, those found in nature and those formed by the hands of human kind.  From the time I could walk and talk, cognizant of the elemental world in whose folds I was coddled, I was mindful of the simplicity, and the elusiveness, of beauty abounding everywhere.

Everywhere, that is, but in me.

Though to pinpoint the exact moment I withdrew myself from the loop, when my personal discernment withered on the vine, is not possible, my earliest memories are of a girl caught up in judging herself, criticizing her form, berating her thought processes . . . holding herself up to the harsh light of compare and contrast and finding herself most wanting.  I can assure you it is no way to live a life.  The process, one of exhaustion in the emotional and physical realms, weakens the spirit and hinders the soul in its spiritual quest.  And, really, my ability to extend myself, to help and give and love as I believe I was created to do, has been diluted.  Thus, whatever true and lovely imprint I am intended to disperse to awaiting recipients in my sphere of influence prevails at half-strength.  And that simply will not do any longer.

That bit of personal revelation doubtless comes as no surprise to those people closest to me.  Loved ones who express their concern judiciously.  Confidants who assure me that which I presently can not see yet lives within me.  A husband who shores me up with humor and affection and patience.  Children who encourage as only my own babies ever could.  It is all for the good.  It does not land on deaf ears or settle into a cold heart.  But the plowed fields of self yield as crops planted and watered, weeded and mulched, but never fertilized.  It's time to increase production.

In that vein, the month-mark is right around the corner: my 28 days of dutifully swallowing a tiny pale pink pill.  Last night I called in my prescription refill.  My brain chemistry has mellowed.  The anti-depressant is working.  Within the first week, I sensed a shift, beyond the medication-induced fatigue which encouraged a few extended afternoon naps, beyond the initial possibility of placebo-effect.  At week two, I knew beyond a shadow of doubt (in my experience, doubt often presents with more presence than that of a peripheral mist) that a positive change had taken hold of me.  I was still me, still Gloria, but less intense, a bit more relaxed.  The speeding train of endless thoughts had slowed down.  The urge to cry and shout in recurring bouts of frustration, sorrow, anger, and irritation?  Decreased significantly if not all together.  But my humor remained intact.  My ability to sense God in my life, to bend my spirit to supplication -- all still there.  Able to be accessed with more ease, in fact.  Each of these things are, taken one at a time or consumed as one giant horse pill, answers to a lifetime of seeking and prayer.  My decision to go down this road can be chalked up as an emerging victory.

That is a beautiful thing.