Leaves danced gracefully with the light Winter wind. The sky was icy blue that crystalised the sun’s rays. Sharp cold beams pierced his skin as he sat at the park. Before going home, he usually sat at the park across from his office. On a Saturday he had to spend half of it at work. Saturday mornings when people woke up to the smell of pancakes with family, he woke up to coffee to jolt him into action.
However, what could he do? He had to work. He needed clothes on his back. He needed food in his stomach. And his work provided him with exactly that. Nothing more, nothing less. Sitting and feeling the sharp winds pierce his body felt as if the cold has freezing his dying dreams. He never aspired to work for anyone. But he blames himself for being employed again. You are only the conversations that you have with people he was once told. And so, in his hometown, the conversations he had were with people who were employed. Those conversations were void of self-dependence by developing your income or revenue stream. The conversations with family and friends advocated for employment. And against his better judgment, the heavy influence of these conversations led him once more to the world of employment. A world he had vowed never to enter again.
But he was not bitter about it. He had started a business before. But the pandemic destroyed his business. And in seeking similar success, he threw as many ideas to the wall hoping one will stick. In doing so, he was burning the money he had saved. He was burning the credit he had built. In the pursuit to rekindle a past flame, what he thought was paraffin pouring on it, was actually water that forever doused it.
Strapped clean and bare of who he was, he entered the new chapter of his life with the hope of rebranding himself. He entered the new chapter with the hope of finding a new purpose and meaning. Strapped clean and bare of who he was, he knew that now was the perfect time to begin afresh.
But how does one do that? How does one become new? How does one re-establish himself? Inasmuch as he felt free to be new, he was still a prisoner; a prisoner to what his mom thought of him, a prisoner to what his sister thought of him, a prisoner to what his friends thought of him. Whenever talking with these people, the conversations were rooted in an identity that he longer identified with. He was a new man trapped in his old skin.
The shedding process would not be easy. Unlike a snake that wiggles and twists the old skin off, hooks of “I know you”, “you not like this”, jokes rooted in his past weaknesses among friends clawed themselves on his old skin of self. Inasmuch he was a new person when he looked at the mirror, those who had different lenses of who he was, did not and would not see him as the new person he saw himself as.
He had read many interesting characters in history who had reinvented themselves. And in this reinvention, found the elusive success that they hoped for. Most notably is Abram Lincoln who was an arrogant man who used to mock those he found inferior to him. However, he took the time to re-establish himself and eradicate certain traits that made him unlikable. Lo and behold, this gradual and steady transformation led him to become one of America’s greatest presidents.
He knew that he would have to endure the process. Inasmuch as his family would not understand it. Inasmuch as his friends would not understand it. Inasmuch as the hooks would cut into his new skin as he shed off the old, he knew that it was necessary.
The leaves continued to dance with the gentle breeze of the Winter wind. As the icy beams of the sun froze his dreams he thanked the Lord. Like standing under a shower of rain, the icy coldness jolted him into life. His freezing dreams would remain alive only if he remembered that moment. That moment in which God told him to be alive.
He stood from the park bench. With a warmness in his heart like that of a blanket after being in the snow, he went into the world a new man.
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