Tulip Bulbs

I am impatient for the return of spring. The smell of the earth and the damp, crisp mornings, the expanding light and warmth of earlier sunrises and longer days that call dormant bulbs into beautiful blooms. My flower bed is full of them, I know, because once it was only dirt, filled by default with tree and weed seeds, and because I wanted to be greeted by flowers early in the season without fail, I put perennial bulbs for tulips and crocuses in. Something green would have come up anyway, but I wanted some of the contents of my flower bed to be by choice, and I wanted the garden to bloom for the entire spring and summer, right through to autumn, without having to seed. The patterns, and the colour are predictable. The tulips are always red and yellow. I can also predict that every year I will have elm trees sprout in between the tulips. Not because I put them there, but because the wind blew the seeds off the trees, and they hide in the dirt. One might even say, that in the default setting of my yard, because of the neighbour’s trees I am a tiny tree farm. But was that my intention? Do the tulips now have to lean over and bow to the elms, or do I need to root them out so the water goes to the flowers that are there on purpose?

Humans are a little like gardens in spring... Life is light, it calls out what’s lying dormant, and reveals it. Some of it begins to feel like it belongs, not because it was intentionally planted by whomever designed the garden, but because its presence is so pervasive... Or it has been there so many years one forgets what was planted and what belongs to that which blew in on the wind. Not all seeds that blow in cramp the style fo the intentional design, some might even intensify the striking beauty of the arrangement. But others seem to make claims, and damage the vibrancy and allure of the mix, causing chaos, and unpredictable arrivals. Many of these plants are invasive, and don’t let go easily, recurring unbidden, even after aggressive weeding. They even get trimmed back before they can go to seed, but troubling to the gardener, is the tuber... for even a fragment of the root still encased in soil can have the “wrong” species popping up to say hello. The relationship between our original blueprint and our experience is  the same way. Some behaviours and tendencies have origins we recognize, or forgot, or wish we could forget, some are positive and awake our true personality and gifting. 

Childhood trauma is a thing. And so is emotional experience prior to birth. It’s interesting, really, realizing that the things we find have “always” been true of us might not have been the default. For example, I have had two core issues my entire life: chronic tardiness, and a sense that there just isn’t space for me. Clocks are all set at varying times to keep me on my toes, and I just finally resigned myself to the sad reality that being early was an utter impossibility. Funny though, I’ve been thankful and aware my whole life, that the Maker arranges my schedule much like he moves the (financial) cows when necessary. Cognitively I fear neither financial scarcity, nor the consequences of running behind. However, in the depths of my being there has been a tiny little voice that talks like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonder Land “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date...” And I’m somewhat resigned to the “fact” that when I do arrive, my chair will most likely be taken anyway, by someone much more worthy of it. 

There are no indelible memories to back these assumptions. For quite some time I presumed I was just born to a different era, when life ran on a different timeline. The artist in me made this theory plausible, and knowing others who have felt a bit of the square peg, round hole feeling, I just assumed it was the anomaly that would give me commonality in the right group of people. And, in some circles, it has. However, the further along I get in the journey to living out wholeness, the more I realize the discomfort and the fear it walks around with isn’t linked to my original design, for I am perfectly loved, and that chronic uncertainty doesn’t really jive with living out of secure identity. 

I think I may have gone my entire life without questioning these quirks, but finding myself truly loved, and finally safe enough to heal from my subsequent trauma (it could be noted that humans often heal backwards... from the present to the far past, in layers, much like an onion), tangible me began poking at those shadow areas and opening the blinds in some rather dusty psychological spaces. I found, while rooting about in dark corners, that the logic did not follow. If I was indeed, as I am convinced, designed as an image bearer to the perfectly timed Father of All, and purposefully put in the wide universe for this particular moment, by the one who invented both space and time, and for whom there is infinite reason in being, and boundless time in which to be... then it follows that my timing and placement are also flawless. So why then the insecurity surrounding their current “lacking” manifestation? 

I smelled a lie. An OLD lie. This was not a personality idiosyncrasy, it also wasn’t a character flaw. It wasn’t the result of any one event that I could recall and heal associated trauma. It was something that I just always felt. 

I have been blessed to have many healing conversations with my mother over the course of my adult life. She has been there for many of my most healing moments, not just for support, but in some cases, because we needed to heal together. Our stories are interwoven. During an earlier conversation, we had talked about her hesitancy to embrace her pregnancy. She wasn’t well and already had two children. She was feeling insecure about her mothering and was afraid she would be a bad mother to another child. This had come up while I was healing from some ailments linked to a pervasive feeling of rejection. I had been afraid to begin anything new, thinking I was sure to fail at it... that people would somehow see through me and not like or want me. I always felt somewhat on probation. 

But this time and space thing is different. It’s not really about rejection. When I was looking up connections between kidneys and a cyclical rash, and which chakras might be involved in healing them, I stumbled on a psychological connection between chronic irritation both physical, and emotional linking childhood trauma with assumptions about this sense of lack of deficiency in an area being normalized. As though we just “are.” It is the default setting. I thought about these core fears, and how basic they were. I was trying to deal with a rash that started the same time every year and went dormant the same time every year, peaking somewhere in the middle of the cycle. I’d never thought about the timing before now. But when I counted back from my birthday... when it settles, to the beginning... it was almost 9 months. Those feelings of always arriving in ill timing, and not being a good fit, for, well anything, not even being comfortable, truly in my own skin... and always worrying that “I” would be lost if I let my boundaries soften for a season, as though the things I do outwardly defined me. If I stop, or lose my designated space in which to exercise my particular creative gifting, it would somehow be gone forever. Even if I discover things I enjoy that are not part of the original, understood, validated, template of my being... I felt a threat. Growth, morph, change, all brought about fear that what I was certain about in my character and personality would stop being so real. 

I’m a mother. I’ve been married, divorced, a single mom for years on end and now invested in a new and healthy relationship. Life has seasons. Kids bring about responsibilities that change the ability to maintain consistent creative flow. It happens. And this change always drains me. I feel guilty sometimes for enjoying the moment I am in because I am not doing “that...” Or, I feel ripped off because I am stuck in the necessary mundane of motherhood and the joy fizzles. 

As I thought about childhood trauma, I imagined my mom thinking “not this, not right now,” but there I was, right then: this specific person, in that perfect moment. I. Do. Fit. No one else can be me. I am perfectly on time, all the time. I can even be early, if that is what someone believes “on time” to look like. I am not chained to the expectation that I am without purpose in a place where I have been given no specific responsibility. 

My flaws are not “part of me.” I am not destined to bear the cross of them. They are wounds that need healing, and I can heal from them. It is not just safe to let go, but also a thing of beauty to tend the hope garden and see what blooms. 

While it is true that the fears that drove them were as old as my memory, it is not true that they were there by design. My design is as flawless as the One who created it. Out of his mind, I was  spoken into being. There was not an error. My default setting is perfect. There really is no fear in love. All essential components will remain intact. All outer displays to which my world needs access will still function, even if they are unpracticed for a season. I shall never cease to be. 

We humans resign ourselves to those things that we sometimes consider to be flaws. It’s sad, really, that we choose the ever accommodating “coping” over the very freeing “healing.” If per chance, a part of your existence, physical, emotional or spiritual, gives you cause for discontent, or fear, explore it. There is rarely pond scum if algae isn’t growing on the bottom... or, perhaps, a prettier example: tulips don’t grow unless a bulb is planted. 

And parents... if you felt guilty reading this... be a conduit of healing. Your vulnerability and honesty, even your apology may just free your child from the fears that cause them to make some very frustrating decisions. I’ve been on both ends of that situation. There really is beauty exchanged for ashes. And some wounds, when they are healed, become beautiful scars. But usually because they have been allowed into the light. Exposure leads to development.

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