Change and Goo ~ They’re Both An Inside Job
“Dear God, please change this person/place/thing so that I can feel better.”
What kind of prayer is that? If you said disempowering, you get a pony!
We all know that change is an inside job, goddamnit!
The patron saint of that prayer is the caterpillar, but can you blame her? She has eaten herself silly only to find herself inside of the equivalent of a deprivation tank. You can call it a chrysalis if it makes you feel better. That’s such a pretty word for a device of torture. Or a coffin. Or the box magicians use to cut ladies in half or turn rabbits into a Maserati’s.
Metamorphosis — A change in form or nature of a thing or person onto a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.
That sounds magical, right? Death…rebirth…
(Screech) Not so fast.
Let’s check back with the caterpillar.
The guy on the corner in the dark glasses and the trench coat, otherwise known as The Big Guy—or God—he promised her wings. To fly and shit.
But first she had to part with all of her worldly possessions; her BMW, her westside condo— her ravenous appetite—and her wallet.
It all sounded too good to be true to her. No more black back fuzz. No more Spanx. Just color and beauty and flight.
What could go wrong?
What she wasn’t aware of, what no one had told her, what wasn’t even listed in the small print—was the goo part.
In between caterpillar and butterfly, the poor thing is…simply put…well, she is goo. A gelatinous mixture of arms and legs, fuzz and butt cheeks, heart, soul, hopes and dreams. It’s ugly AF but this stage cannot be skipped. This is where the magic happens. The change.
And where the fervent prayers began.
The bargaining.
The begging.
The looking for every loophole.
The nearest exit. The thingy to break the glass on the fire alarm. The cord that stops this runaway train of pain.
If you had the ability (which, thank god you don’t) to hear her muffled cries for help and you, in all of your misguided frenzy to free her, cut the chrysalis open at this stage to hand her a lifeline or her cell phone—she would ooze all over the place like so much snot.
The goo stage. We’ve all been there and unfortunately, there is no short cut.
If there was I’d have found it and sold the patent to some twenty-two-year-old silicon valley wunderkind for a bazillion dollars. I would be sipping a Pina Colada, sucking the toes of the cabana boy on my own private island and I most certainly would NOT be writing to you about goo.
Anyway… back to metamorphosis.
If there was a handbook it would be titled “On Your Way to Better—Via Hell.”
Using alchemy. And magic. All of that eye of Knut and horn of toad kind of stuff.
Who said this was going to be fun? Oh, that’s right. no one!
Listen, nobody wants to be goo. We may want change but we sure as hell don’t want to go through the really messy part in the middle. The part where we’re not quite a butterfly but we can’t go back to being a caterpillar. The point of no return.
In other words the goo part.
I have written more goo related notes to myself and my friends these past few months than I have my entire life.
Everyone seems a little gelatinous lately. It appears we all prayed to feel better and now we’re stuck between a rock and a wet place.
If you can relate take solace in the fact that you are not hanging upside down from that branch alone. There are a whole bunch of us here and you know the old saying “Goo loves company”, well it’s true. We do.
Here’s my theory and I’m convinced it’s true. Only the bravest of caterpillars take the dare to metamorphose into butterflies. The others opt for the cash and free passes to the all-you-can-eat buffet and never look back.
Wings don’t come cheap y’all. There’s always some sacrifice involved.
“If you were born without wings do nothing to prevent them from growing” ~ Coco Chanel
Hang in there (pun intended) you courageous ones.
And
Carry on,
xox
You guys! I wanted to let you know that we did it! As per my post on Tuesday, my dear friend got her test results back and lo and behold, she’s fine! The cat was alive you guys! Thank you to everyone who helped us out with this thought experiment. We are SO fing powerful! She is out of the goo and has her wings!
xox Love you!
