Think back, my friends, to early elementary school when you studied the life cycle of a butterfly. You probably remember the basics, and, for what I’m about to say, that’s all you need to know.

As you remember, there are 4 stages to a butterfly’s metamorphic life. Stage one: egg, self explanatory. Stage two: larva, this is the caterpillar stage, when they wiggle around being adorable and eating all the leaves. Stage three: pupa, the chrysalis stage, the reason we’re talking right now. And finally, stage four: adult, mother fudging butterfly stage, free to fly the earth being magical and sexy.

As many of you know, I’ve been going through a bit of an upheaval here of late. In August, I became separated from my husband of 21 years and we began “untying the knot”, so to speak, disentangling the lives we had built together and going our separate ways. It’s been 4 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days, and I have to say that a lot of that has been spent thinking, overthinking, questioning, crying, building myself up, then tearing myself back down, then trying to build myself up again. And I have taken a long hard look at myself many times.

I didn’t realize until recently how much of my self-worth was tied up in my relationship. I haven’t really liked myself for a long time. I have believed I was ugly, fat, boring, annoying, etc. But I was always able to end my sentences with “but at least one person loves me”.

“I may be ugly to everyone else but at least Nick thinks I’m beautiful.”

“Other people might find me boring but at least Nick thinks I’m interesting.”

“Blah blah blah but at least Nick…”

I didn’t like myself, but I figured it was okay because at least one person did.

Four months, two weeks, and two days ago, that all changed. I couldn’t get my self-worth from “at least…” anymore. Now, I was stuck looking in the mirror wondering if anyone would ever love me again, believing myself to be fundamentally unlovable. (I’m an Enneagram 4. Look it up.)

Today, I had a thought that changed all of that.

Once you become separated from your partner of many years, the question of whether or not you will date again and WHEN you will date again comes up often. It’s something you think about yourself and something a lot of people ask. Some advise getting back out there right away, while others advise taking time for yourself. Either way, you begin to wonder what the dating market has for you and if you have anything to offer anyway. After so much time not liking the person in the mirror, I believed I had nothing to offer anyone. Do I want to date again, find love again, settle into a comfortable monogamy once again? Hell ya. But not right now. It’s so scary. “And besides,” I’ve thought, “no one is going to want me.”

But today, I realized something. I realized that I am going through an effing metamorphosis right now. I thought of all the things I don’t like about myself and the subtle changes I’ve been slowly making over the last 4 months to improve myself. I thought of what I will be like in a year’s time. And I am delighted to report that I have no idea what I will be like in a year’s time. Everything about me is in a state of flux right now, right down to my hair, which I have decided to stop dyeing for the time being, and let the grey grow back in. Clean slate.

Theydies and gentlethems, I realized today that I am glorious goo.

You see, at the pupa stage, when the caterpillar turns itself into a chrysalis, the whole mother loving thing turns into soup. An outer shell forms and hardens, and the insides become glop. Glorious green slushy goodness. And it is from this slop, and only from this slop, that a butterfly forms. The caterpillar must shed its skin and dissolve its former being in order to transform into its final stage: adult, butterfly.

It’s true, I don’t particularly like who I am right now. I like myself, don’t get me wrong, but I still feel ugly, boring, annoying, etc. But I no longer desire to attach my self-worth to anyone else with an “at least” ever again. I’m taking steps now, concrete steps, to become a person I LIKE. I will become my own “at least”. I will become a person I admire, respect, love, and think is hella foine.

But right now, I’m in a chrysalis. I am goo, glorious goo. I’m dissolving my former self so I can become an effing butterfly. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with being goo. This is part of the process.

It’s actually exciting to me to think I have a chance to reinvent myself. I’m actually super excited knowing that I have no idea what my life will look like in four years when I’m, hopefully, graduating from college. (Eep!) In fact, I don’t even know what my life will look like in a year and that’s amazing and wonderful!

Something else from the world of lepidopterology, butterflies retain memories from when they were caterpillars. I love that because it ties in so beautifully with the rest of my metaphor. Though I be goo, I will not forget what I have learned from my life as a caterpillar and when I am finally a winged beauty, soaring through the sky, I will have learned from my mistakes and won’t repeat them.

My life is shifting, evolving, transforming, and utterly gooifying itself. I am on my way to a life floating on spiced summer breezes, sipping nectar and whispering to the sky.

But for now, I am goo, glorious goo. And I couldn’t be more delighted.

I’m supposed to be packing. It’s 9:15 a.m. on a Wednesday. Instead, I’m sitting in my car drinking my half syrup pumpkin dirty chai latte and wishing I could just throw on some warm clothes, lay a blanket down in the grass, and stare up at the sky for a while.

A good friend of mine reminded me recently to practice gratitude especially for the things I find it hard to be grateful for, so here we go.

My children’s father left me in August. (I’m trying to move away from the word “husband” because, while we are still technically married, I’m trying to change my language to reflect his new status in my life.) And last night, for maybe the first time, I really started to see the good that is coming out of this storm. I don’t like how the change to my life came about but I’m really starting to think this change is necessary for both him and me.

I’m packing up my things and moving out of our shared space to a new, much smaller place. My son Zeke and I will be the only ones in the new house. My oldest, Mori, will be living with their father. It’s certainly not how I’ve ever imagined things would go for our family. And I’m still going to grieve the loss of the future I’d envisioned, the future we had talked about for years. But I’m also realizing that I’m grieving something that never existed except in the space of my mind and our conversations. I’m grieving the loss of a fiction I was emotionally invested in but it was still fiction, it never existed.

It’s easy to think of the life we’d built and the life I believed we were building towards and mourn their death. And it’s harder to face the reality that things were not as they seemed, to see things from a different perspective. It’s like looking at an optical illusion sculpture, one of those sculptures that changes shape as you move and look at it from different angles. In the video below you can see a pair of giraffes until you move just a little and then suddenly it’s an elephant. I’m moving and shifting and changing and that is causing me to begin to see what’s happened to my life from a totally different angle.

If you’re into the Enneagram, I am a type 4, the moody, creative type. (You never would have guessed, right? 🙄😂) Fours spend too much time in their heads examining the past and dreaming about the future and I am no exception. I’ve spent way too much of my time trying to figure out what the future looks like and trying to decipher the clues left behind for me from myself in the past. And today, I’m deciding to work harder on living in the now. I can’t change the past but I can learn from it. And I can’t know my future but I can work to shape it.

I may not like how the change came about in my life but this storm isn’t just changing the circumstances of my life, it’s changing me. Of course, that was inevitable but what’s surprising to me is how much I like it. I like the way I’m changing and I am interested to see how different I’ll be a few months from now or a few years. And, for once, I’m going to work to not spend all my time dreaming about the future. Nothing is established anymore. And, let’s be real, it never was. I will take nothing for granted anymore.

So I’m walking through the storm. And, strangely, I’m grateful for it. The truth is I’ve always loved walking in the rain.

So I wrote a song for all my friends today. The song is kind of self explanatory. I’m going through some stuff that is hard but I have so many amazing friends who are helping me through it. I love them so much. I want them to know I think they’re just the absolute best in this world. And, also, I’m putting these shitty experiences on notice. They might try to take me down but they won’t be able to because my super awesome friends have my back.

Y’all I dusted off an oldie. I think I wrote this in 2011. It’s still a bop, though. Also this recording is kinda terrible and my tempo is all over the place. But I had fun singing it and that’s all that matters. Give it a listen and imagine I’m singing it straight to your face and telling you I love you because I do.