Out of the Cocoon

I’ve been off grid for so so long,

shedding skins, dissolving selves,

gestating in the dark,

waiting for the right moment to emerge.

Nearly 10 years…

At first, the call was silence—

to disappear, to strip away the noise,

to let old selves unravel without witness,

to find myself beyond the weight of expectation,

beyond the scripts of who I was supposed to be.

Solitude became my sanctuary,

a quiet cocoon where I could listen only to what was real,

where I could hear the truth of my own.

Silence became my refuge,

a necessary exile.

But what once soothed me has grown tight.

The quiet now presses against my ribs,

a ceiling too low, a skin too small.

What was once safe is now suffocating.

Now, a new call stirs beneath my ribs—

a whisper, a pulse,

a tide pulling me back to shore.

The call to share again.

Persistent as breath,

waiting for me to answer.

Yet every time I reach for the words,

they scatter like sparrows,

too small, too restless

to hold all that I have become.

What does my voice even sound like here?

How do I translate a life unspoken for so long,

a soul reshaped by the elements and stillness alike?

It feels foreign to share—

like slipping on a jacket from another life,

once mine, now unfamiliar.

It still fits, technically.

But I have outgrown its seams.

My language feels shallow,

as if I am trying to paint the depth of the ocean

with only a handful of colors.

Unpracticed,

uncertain,

the gap between who I am

and my ability to express it

feels w   i   d   e…

Everything has changed—

the algorithms, the marketing tactics,

the shifting tides of relevance.

And more than that—

I have unraveled, undone,

been broken open and remade,

again and again.

I’ve died a hundred quiet deaths,

only to rise,

nearly unrecognizable

from who I was before.

As I watch my friends and peers

weave their art and service into the world with such grace,

I feel like a child again,

learning how to speak,

learning how to walk—

Again.

Maybe that’s what rebirth asks of us.

Not to return as we were,

but to step forward,

uncertain, unpolished,

one trembling word,

one imperfect offering,

one tender beginning

at a time.