Mirrors & Maps

An Essay on Meeting Yourself

I started first grade in a private Christian school in the fall 1983. My memories of that time are less visual and more feeling. I remember feeling nervous and a little invisible. I wasn’t a painfully shy kid, and I’m not a shy adult. But I had a hard time then and even now believing that I could ever be as affecting as I am affected. When I was younger that became the meter with which my behavior manifested. I was so bodily, emotionally, and cerebrally affected by life that I had to either disappear behind accepted behavior or try to affect others with performative behavior.

I started to take piano lessons that first year at school. I would leave my classroom once a week. To get to lessons I had to walk past the bus lot, the cafeteria, and school office, all areas that were part of my every day, and pass through the foyer of the sanctuary of the adjoined church for my lessons in the big gym on the other side of the campus.

A few weeks or months into the routine of my lessons, the church that was connected to the school decided not to let anyone pass through near the sanctuary. They locked the doors on either side of that part of the school. The only way to get to my lessons was to go upstairs, through the middle school floor, then across the entire high school wing, and down a back stairwell to get to the gym. I had no idea how to navigate that route and there was no map that I could understand.

I let my teacher know that I didn’t know the way. She asked the class if there was anyone that could walk with me to map out the route for me. That kind of attention to my inability was pretty embarrassing, but also relieving when a kid who had older siblings in the school and spent a lot of time there offered to show me the way.

I’ve always been a directionally challenged person, always having some external directional resource to point my way. I have been known to walk into a store in the mall and come out minutes later with zero recollection on which direction I was going when I walked in. It’s funny, and disorienting.

One day, before lessons, my teacher said that my guide was no longer able to take me to piano lessons. He had guided me enough times and it was time for me to get there on my own. So…I quit piano lessons. Just like that. I have recounted that story time and again in a self deprecating fashion, making a joke of my insecurity.

Photo by T.H. Chia on Unsplash

I had occasion lately to reflect back on that 1st grader, and that story came up. For some reason it wasn’t funny any more. It kind of broke me. So many of the parts of myself that I didn’t like, or wanted to spackle over with charm and achievement; the fear, insecurity, and inability to trust my own sense of direction, were so present in that one story. It became a mirror into the shadows I’ve spent years creating broken coping mechanisms to divert around.

I had to release judgement of that version of myself before I could confront her with grace and honesty in a way that would actually lead to real transformation. Nothing can really bloom in the harsh storms of judgement, especially when those storms are directed at ourselves.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately learning that disappearing or projecting doesn’t protect me from being affected by the world. The only thing that it does is disconnect me from myself. And being internally disconnected just creates a deep distrust in my surroundings, in others, and in myself. When I don’t really show up, I can’t trust that anything that comes after can be real.

So now, I look at that little first grader and I feel like I can love her into showing up fully. I can tell her that she knew the way all along. It was right there inside her ability to be real with herself, and honest about how showing up is hard sometimes. I can tell her that when she’s brave enough to face her shadows, the parts that are hard to look at, or the things that scare her, or the way she’s so deeply affected by the world, she’ll find safe places and safe people. And she’ll still get hurt, and life will still feel raw, and there will still be times when she doesn’t know which way to go. But she can trust the map inside of herself to show the way when it’s time. And that waiting until then can be good too.

The mirror of who I was showed me I am my own map. Meeting myself is a beautiful journey.

This is a poem my spiritual director shared with me that I’ve been revisiting a lot since she shared it.

Monarch
By James Crews

The butterfly does not break free triumphant.
Once it claws through the chrysalis,
it stands there shivering, new wings aching
as they slowly fill with blood. It must keep
its tiny eyes shut tight at first against
the brightness and shimmer of a world
it has never seen before—not like this.
It must listen until the soul’s voice whispers:
The flowers are waiting. Leave the skin
of the old life far behind. Open your eyes
and give in to the blue air that will carry you
everywhere you need to go.