For the majority of her life,
She lived hard.
Her early years,
Not by choice,
Not her fault,
It was the environment she was born into.
Dysfunction and chaos.
In her late teens,
She was introduced to a man.
They fell in love.
They got married and brought a beautiful baby boy into this world.
She lived softer than she was used to.
It was unfamiliar.
As it so often happens in life,
We go back to what is familiar.
What is known versus unknown.
She was taught the unknown was something to fear.
She began making choices in the living hard realm again.
Whether consciously or unconsciously,
It was happening.
More than likely,
Unconsciously.
She didn't know who she was.
She didn't know what she wanted.
She didn't know what she needed.
She was too young,
Naive,
Scared,
And scarred.
Eventually,
The divorce came,
Returning her to living hard,
Ending the days and a few short years of living softer.
She lived like this,
Chasing,
Escaping,
Running from herself,
From her life,
For two decades.
Living out the old adage of keeping up with the Joneses.
Living hard.
Until,
Eventually,
A slow blossoming,
A slow flowering began to emerge from the inside out.
She no longer wanted to live hard.
She no longer needed to live hard.
She began making the choice to live softer.
She slowed down,
Stopped chasing,
Escaping,
Running from herself,
From her life.
She began to feel her breath,
Her body,
Experience stillness,
Silence,
Peace,
And then she noticed nature and the simpler appreciations of life.
She listened to softer music,
Read softer books,
Walked slower,
Talked slower,
Even drove slower.
She began to slow down.
In this slowing down,
Something beautiful was happening.
Like the caterpillar evolving into a butterfly,
She too was becoming a butterfly.
With her beauty,
Self-acceptance,
And realizing her worth for the first time in her life,
She began to take that metaphorical first flight like a butterfly.
She began choosing to live softer.
