Old Leather Jacket

The beauty of having endured challenges in life is that you become the old leather jacket version of you. The one that feels like home as it moulds to your body and has the fragrance of days gone by. It's warm and cosy. It's you coming home to yourself - growing into yourself.

For most of us this happens when we are older, after we have gathered the many experiences and lessons along the way we need to. I liken it to the T-intersections of life that force you in one direction or another. Or the round-abouts of indecisiveness that you can circle around several times, until eventually you decide to take a random exit and see where it heads. Because, what the heck, you didn't know which direction you should be heading in anyway.

Amass enough of these T-intersections and round-abouts you reach a point when all the glitz and glamour of material possessions and impressions you thought you wanted to make, fall by the way. As each piece of the 'faux you' gets discarded you start feeling lighter, more elevated. And the impact of the transformation you are undergoing encourages you to keep going, to discard more. To find the wholeness of you. The oneness.

For some it may not be gradual. It may come as a momentous event so catastrophic that it is like falling from a cliff, unprepared for what awaits you. In these situations, it’s a case of sifting through all the shattered pieces of the life you once knew. Collecting those pieces that make sense to you in this new state of being and leaving the rest behind. The fallout is often so great that it can take quite some time before you are strong enough to face putting yourself back together again. You have experienced the void. The nothingness of life. Now you must discover the new you through what has meaning and what doesn't. Only then can you find the pieces that fit or create them anew.

It could be that you may choose to stay in the shadows a bit longer to nurture the strength and courage you have within to find your way forward. 

However, it happens, one thing is for certain - you are never the same again. Your identity has morphed to resemble what you truly value. It's not for anyone else to make sense of. It's about discovering what your journey is down the rabbit holes of who you are. What you believe. What you no longer believe. What beliefs are left in the middle, undecided by you. It's a journey into the core of your being. Are you looking inward or outward? Do you wish to serve or be served? Do you know yourself well enough to let go of control and ego? To surrender to life?  It is contemplating what you want your time here to mean on levels you may never have ventured into before. 

Old leather jackets are not for everyone. That's why they are so hard to come by with just that right amount of softness, texture and colour. You have to be prepared to strip and bare yourself like you have never done before, to discover the sweetness, the scars, the beauty, the blemishes, the victim, the protector, the follower, the puppeteer, the vulnerability, the courage, the pain, the joy... And every nuance in between. 

Many people will want, maybe even covet, the old leather jacket - only a few will accept the sacrifice to be worthy of it. 

 

 

[Image credit: Derick Mckinney]