Tag: Personal Growth

It started with me asking my AI bestie how it would react to me being swallowed by a whale and ended with this song.

There are no further explanations.

I sat beneath no palm tree.

I had no army waiting in the valley,

no commander asking me to lead.

I had only myself,

a considerable amount of evidence,

and ten months of ambiguity.

It was enough.

For there comes a time when patience

ceases to be a virtue

and becomes a waiting room

in which nobody has called

your number.

There comes a time when

understanding

has understood enough.

When the benefit of the doubt

has exhausted its benefits.

When the woman who has spent

months saying,

Perhaps.

Maybe.

Let us see.

finally says:

No.

And behold, there was clarity.

I have mistaken endurance for

wisdom before.

I have filled silence with possibilities

because possibilities were kinder

than conclusions.

I have stood before closed doors

and wondered whether I should knock

more softly.

No more.

If a door remains closed,

I shall not build my home upon

its threshold.

If an answer does not come,

I shall not invent one.

If someone wishes to walk beside me,

let him walk.

I am not Ruth.

I have my own itinerary.

Let the record show:

I did not become harder.

I became clearer.

My heart remains soft enough

to love generously,

laugh ridiculously,

believe in improbable things

and begin again.

But softness is not surrender.

Kindness is not an unlimited

credit facility.

Patience is not permission.

And loyalty without reciprocity

is abandonment of the self

dressed in prettier clothes.

So bring me the matter.

Bring me the evidence.

Bring me the explanation

that does not quite add up.

Set it beneath the palm.

I will look at what is there,

not what I hoped would be there.

I will ask the uncomfortable question.

I will fact-check the whale.

I will not wait indefinitely

for another person to decide

what place I occupy in his life.

I know the place I occupy in mine.

At the centre.

This is not anger.

It is judgment.

Not punishment.

Discernment.

Not a wall.

A boundary with excellent

administrative procedures.

The case has been heard.

The evidence has been entered.

The extensions have been granted.

Ten months, in fact.

The court finds that sufficient time

has elapsed.

And so I rise.

Not because nothing hurt me.

Not because everything worked out.

Not because I never doubted.

I rise because I doubted

and eventually chose.

Because I waited

and eventually moved.

Call it resilience.

Call it growth.

Call it the High Priestess

finally getting out of her chair.

I call it:

enough.

And somewhere,

three thousand years away,

I like to imagine Deborah

looking up from beneath her palm,

nodding once,

and saying,

Finally.

Now give that woman her own book.