Kaleidoscope

Four years ago, feeling deeply frustrated with circumstances that refused to budge despite my best efforts, I wrote an article called Trusting the Kaleidoscope of Life and published it with Be You Media. Only recently did I become aware that Be You is no longer a functioning platform; and on reading my article again, I realized that the same patterns I wrote about have surfaced again.

In fact, they seem to do so around this time of year.

As much as I love fall, it also signals the end of a cycle and reminds me of all that I wanted to do or accomplish in the last year, and haven’t yet seen the results of. Maybe, honestly, a little bit of panic too because fall also signals my birthday approaching, along with the inevitable feeling that there was something I forgot to do but now it’s too late. With that time of year fast approaching now, I read my own frustration with a smile but also the recognition of a familiar face.

On the other hand, trust has slowly come to seem like less of a reluctant free-fall and more…trustworthy. The kaleidoscope continues wheeling, and the patterns shift and remake themselves. But as the pieces drift and move, I have more faith that they will, eventually, form new shapes and new meaning.

Since Be You is no longer available as a platform, here is the original draft of the article. I hope it resonates with you and the patterns of your life.

Trusting the Kaleidoscope of Life

Life is odd, isn’t it?  It’s a kaleidoscope of choices, of consequences, of my choices intermingling with yours and the perhaps unforeseen shades created by the two colors meeting.  A choice I give no thought to may play a larger role in the life of a complete stranger than it seems to in my own.  Isn’t it strange?  Strange that out of these unending series of ripples as they spread and mingle and fade, we manage to patch together our lives.  Out of cause and effect, wild hopes and day-to-day duties, and all that often seems insignificant or unfair, we each have the opportunity to fashion a purpose.  Even when that feels insurmountably difficult.

The choice that most affects my life has always been whether to follow my intuition, or to follow someone else’s idea of what I ought to do.  For most of my life it’s been Door Number Two that wins out.  Someone else’s pebble always seems to make a far bigger splash than my own awkward efforts.

I ask opinions before anything I do, any choice I make.  Does this sound good for dinner?  Does this outfit look okay?  Should I apply for this job?  How should I cut my hair?  Or at least, that’s how it used to be.  Slowly, I am beginning to not care so much.  Whose business is it if I’m terrible at matching outfits?  They’re not the one wearing it!  And if someone doesn’t care for the dinner which I have bothered to cook for them, they can damn well find themselves another one.  And another cook, for that matter.

And though I greatly appreciate, not to mention (erm, sometimes) need advice on major life changes, no one knows the inside of my head like I do.  They haven’t lain wake under those darkest of fears or the trembling hope I hold inside, and they don’t hold the gavel.  I hold it, as I always have.  So why do I let anyone else dictate how or when or if I use it?

I am learning to create my own ripples, as insignificant as they may seem to be.  And I hope they are good ones.  I hope that I never fail to laugh whenever possible, create in the truest manner I can, and maybe give somebody a smile when they’ve run out of their own.  I hope that those ripples continue long after I’ve forgotten throwing the pebbles.  And I hope that if my ripples meet yours—like they’re doing now if you’re reading this—then I hope something even more wonderful is born from the collision.

Perhaps what is struggling to be born is trust.

Trust that I am, in fact, capable of sorting through innumerable choices—as we all do, every single day—to find one that I wish to include in my life. Trust that my choice will not, in fact, turn out to be a disaster; or that if it seems to be, I can always make my way through this storm, as through others before, and still be standing on the other side. Trust that, somehow, this tornado of happenstance that is my life is, in fact, going somewhere. Trust that, somehow, it matters. It all matters. All of the disparate shards that we piece our lives together with, the holes that nothing seems to fit, the synchronicity of an unexpected piece falling into place, the patterns that emerge and meld, the potentials as yet unseen, waiting to be woven into shapes that you can’t now imagine.

And I hope, dear reader, whoever and wherever you are, that you realize how deeply you matter.  You too are the origin of myriad ripples, that make their way, somehow or other, into the lives of others.  I hope that the kaleidoscope that is you shines with kindness even when there seems to be no light.   I hope that you give yourself credit for the courage it often takes to simply be alive, to be you.  And I hope that you find the courage to be more wonderfully you with every day, as the kaleidoscope turns.