Into the New

     Sooner or later, we all come into the new. It sneaks up on us, branding us without choice, like animals. It begins to own us, and unfortunately some of us give up and accept our mark. The mark that society naturally curses us with. What we often don't come to realize is, we must de-brand ourselves; take out the slivers that sneak their way into the inner most being of our souls. If we don't, we are owned. We are owned by what society says we must be. Owned by the same old pattern of our cultures writings, as if they were written in stone; burnt directly into our skin. How do we escape these titles? How do you erase a scar? How do you un-write what has already been written? The answer to these questions? Write over them. The scars will always be there. You will always be put into a category. You will always feel the pain that comes with the hand you were dealt. We cannot change these things. We can not rewrite society. All we can do is, put our own stamp on what we know to be true. Like covering up a tattoo with another tattoo, the old markings leave lines underneath, but the new tattoo covers up enough for us to finally see what we truly are. What words we write for ourselves. I have a mental illness, this will never be erased from my story line. I will always be judged as a result. I will always have the scars that came from the darkest of my days. People will never fully understand. There will always be a blanket of stigma surrounding my existence. 

  Luckily, I can write over what is already there. I have the choice to go in another direction. I have a choice of what I need to do for myself. I can define my illness as something besides an illness. I can take out the hurtful words. I can take my story line, and veer off into another line. The whole thing is a tree. It starts at the roots, and follows into the solidity of the trunk. There are branches everywhere, go every way I can possibly imagine. I get to choose what each branch means. I get to carve into the wood. I can carve whatever I want into the branches of my life. The tree will keep growing tall, and out. Creating new branches on top of the others. Though some of these branches may have scars, the new ones are up to me. I have a choice. Will I stay under the dark in the roots, or will I travel upward, and grow higher and higher. Will I be the maker of my own fate? Whatever I want to be, now that my friends, is up to me.