Becoming she.

I cross my eyes and the brown wooden slats of the deck railing double. As they become two I can see through them. I can see the lake glistening behind each one. What seems solid now has this magical transparency and I imagine reaching my hand into them like when you slip your skin into water and you somehow are part of that water.

.......

The glass jar with coconut sugar is sitting next to the coffee jar. I eye it. Both my parents drink their coffee sweet. When my girlfriends stay with me one of my joys is fixing them coffee and serving it to them in bed or wherever they have cozied up for the morning. They like it sweet. I don't know how much sugar to add so I always sip it before bringing it to them. It feels like dessert in a cup. I don't drink sweet coffee. It is one of the rules that I forgot I had made, that is so deep inside of me.

I grab the jar and stir in a spoonful of this gorgeous brown sparkling powder. I sip. Add more. Stir. Sip.

The sweet coffee in one hand, my computer in the other. My ankle still aching from a sprain a few weeks ago won't allow me to sit cross legged, even though that is how I have always written. Cross legged. With my coffee with no sweet.

I tuck one leg underneath myself and look out at the water. I sip. It feels strange and my body is confused. I go inside and pour a second mug. This time without the sweetness. Only the familiar.

Sip. That one doesn't taste like the comfort I have remembered. It hasn't in weeks. As though something changed inside of me and the she who drank her coffee this way isn't inside me anymore.

.......

I went through my closet and pulled out my kimono collection. I fell in love with kimonos a couple years ago and started collecting them but never wore them. I told myself I was collecting them for retreat photo shoots or beach cover ups or...

The way the sleeves drape and the fabric folds feels strange on my skin. It is new. It is different. I take the kimono I have been staring at for weeks off. I try a different one. The only way to move through new feelings as a highly sensitive person is to let yourself be in them for a bit longer than you think you are able to.

I feel beautiful draped in their fabric. I feel hungry for feeling beautiful again. I feel. I feel. Oh boy, do I feel.

.......

Neither coffee feels right. The sweet one I keep coming back to, allowing myself to be inside of the change, the 'rule breaking' just a bit longer than I am comfortable with.

I adore coffee. It has been my warmth and desire for how I wake up since as long as I can remember. When I was pregnant was the only other time it didn't taste right. Because this being inside of me needed something different and I was in charge of listening and growing that little seed into a beautiful human.

Now it seems I am growing myself. The she who is on her way. Already here and asking me to be inside of her just a bit longer than I am comfortable with because that is the only way I can learn to integrate the newness.

She wants to wear her kimonos. She wants to do crazy things with her hair. She wants to eat toast and put sweet in her coffee even though, especially because, it is against the rules. She wants to break from patterns and behaviors that have her questioning who she is and her worth and value. She wants to be able to sit down and have a beautiful conversation inside of truth without falling apart or acting like a child. She wants to believe that she can slide her hand through the transparent wooden slats as she crosses her eyes but not her legs and that when she reaches through to the other side of whatever is beyond, she wants to believe that she will be held and safe and loved just as the water holds her body when she is able to trust. She wants to learn to put her face under that water and hold her breath and swim to her newest edges. 
.......

I sip each one again. Then put on water for green tea. The space between the two, the was and the becoming needs room to breath. My job is to love them both up. Release the discomfort I have been allowing myself to sit in for longer than I am comfortable so that I may feel comfort again.

The toast pops up and the mayo starts to almost melt into its warmth as the runny egg and soft slice of cheese top it. Toast. And tea. A kimono sweater. A hand reaching through transparent double slots to the magic beyond them, where only seconds ago stood solid bars claiming space.