Malleable

Soft and Then Hard and Then Soft

Have you changed emotionally as you’ve aged? Have you been adaptable? Bendy or rigid? Hard or soft? Warm or cold? Have there been different iterations of you?

Soft clouds. Photo by me.

I was pliable as a young girl; soft and spongy. I was full of life, spunky, and resilient. Then, a domino effect of events caused my parent’s marriage to crumble, and along with it, their resolve to parent me much after the age of five. By the time I was seven, I was running from their dysfunction, and soon, running from myself, my thoughts, and emotions. I was alone and abandoned. I sought shelter by changing the shape of my being, like molding clay.

The clay was modeled in place at home and then fired in the kiln when I went to school.

I cooked and hardened as the product of twelve years of Catholic education. Values, morals, crucifixes hung heavy in every room. My knee-socked legs dangled from the church pews as I said my rosaries. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. I wanted to have faith. I wanted to believe in this supposed sanctuary. You’d think I’d find love and protection here. Instead a sanctimoniousness floated, along with guilt, and covert hypocrisy.

Why were the other girls and boys throwing things at me? I was called dirty, short, fat, and ugly. There was nowhere to hide from my forty classmates - year after year I was forced to smile and interact with them. Even the alleged adults around - the nuns, the priests, the teachers, besides one or two, turned a blind eye, while I got harder and harder. I didn’t know how to tell anyone I could feel myself turning to stone.

I used to be so elastic but I was on the verge of snapping. I was stretched at home and pulled to my limits at school.

One day I awakened and realized I couldn’t remember my sweet, sassy-self any longer. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror but resolved this new version of Holly was the picture of strength. The loneliness, the salty tears dried on my pillow, the palpable ache in my skin alchemized to create a protective armor to help build walls around me. It was a slow and steady process, like water that smooths rocks over years in a riverbed. Erosion. Collision. I was growing stronger with each hit. Hammered metal.

Hiking in North Carolina in 2020. Water flows through the many stones.

I was strong but before I let anyone get close to penetration, I had my weapons. I could survive by being the first to injure, rather than being injured. Cutting laser looks, vitriolic words. I was always in fighting stance, fists raised, one foot staggered in front of the other, weight rested on the back foot, ready to throw a punch. I would have the upper hand. I was vicious. If you asked any of my few high school classmates what they thought of me they would probably say I was driven. I was tough. And I was a complete bitch.

In college, I felt some expansion, I was no longer tethered to a home and a school that loosely resembled a cold prison cell. I didn’t have to see the same horrible people, day after day. I found a close few who were my refuge. I could finally start to laugh. But in my last two years of college, I found myself living with a coterie I was excluded from, and I recoiled once again. I could hear them talking about me through the vents in the house, their words insolent and nasty. It was toxic, again, right there in my house. I found myself guarded, stiffening, watching my every step. There still didn’t seem to be any escape because I wasn’t going home.

It was in my post-graduate training, I started to cure into a different, softer, shape. I met the sweetest girl who became my roommate. Nicole, who exuded goodness and whose smile could light up a room. In her presence, I felt close to the sun. Her warmth wrapped me up. Healed me. Her purity and kind gestures were both small and grand. With her, my fear was gone, and I felt wholly taken care of. For the first time, I understood platonic love. She looked deep inside me, found the threads of my tattered warrior’s shroud, and pulled them, one at a time, until it was completely unraveled to reveal my essence beneath. She loved me right back to the person I was meant to be.

If any bits of hard, cold Holly remained, they finally broke apart when I found my footing in motherhood. It did not happen the moment I looked into my daughter’s eyes or even anytime soon after. It started as a small warm fire that grew and grew until all that was hard and frozen in me had melted away. My daughter’s soft skin, her tiny voice, her hands in mine dissolved any residual rigidity.

I want to show her all the tenderness that was never shown to me. I want to love her enough she doesn’t have to be anyone she truly isn’t.

If any ferocity remains in me, it is only in protection of my precious girl.

Soft, expansive, clouds. Photo by me.

It is true we reflect the kind of energy we absorb. If we are surrounded with negativity, that is what we will emit.

We are all the sum total of everything we have ever experienced. Each and every hit, punch, kick, kindness, joy, and love is stored in our cells. We conform to our experiences.

People can only meet you as far as they’ve met themselves. If they find themselves in a harsh, battered, and weathered state, this is how they will meet you. If they don’t love themselves, they will not love you.

I’ve been hard and and I’ve been soft. I’ve been horribly cruel and I’ve been kind. And I can say with certainty, it is gentleness, kindness, and softness that has ultimately served me. A pure, highly vibrational energy has allowed me to attract an abundance of virtuousness in my life.

As I’ve aged, I’ve seen that I want to be the person who can meet others, who can love fully. And that is what I want to teach my daughter.

Times of strength are needed in this life, but paradoxically, it is softness, peacefulness, and vulnerability that will ultimately make us stronger and more resilient than negativity, ferocity, and rigor.

There are times we will revert back to old patterns but we need to remember to try to remain open, to be malleable, to be influenced toward a soft tranquility.

Stone does not harden overnight, nor is it easy to break. But with care, a hard exterior can shatter to reveal a softer core. There needs to be different iterations of us. We can change shape. And we should.