Today I read returning from the hero’s journey by Isabel.
I will talk more about the journey itself and what I found on it in a future essay, but for now, I will focus on what it was like to return home from the journey, to a place that has remained the same, while my inner world has transformed. I was scared: I didn’t know how to grapple with coming home to a place that suddenly felt so unfamiliar because of all of the ways I had changed while it had not. I didn’t want to lose what I had found on my journey, but I also didn’t want to abandon what I left to go on it initially.
This quote resonated because I also have been on a journey with my divorce, figuring out who and why I am, and reflecting on how to live a fulfilling, meaningful, and authentic life.
The ultimate challenge of growth is integration. There is always a temptation when you go out on your hero’s journey, to just stay out there, unwilling to return home. To keep collecting treasure. Because that is the exciting part on the individual level: leaving home, following what feels right, discovering your path, acquiring your treasure. But an endless adventure is not the point of the journey. The point of the journey is to evolve and then seed your revelations back in your home. The point is to integrate, to land the journey, to make yourself legible to the world once more, and to teach them what you learned while you were away.
Where/who is home in my context? Where and to whom am I returning to? In some sense I am returning home to my ex-husband and I feel that writing essays like my latest one from Write of Passage are my way of showing what I learned. I’m also returning home to my daughter, in constant pursuit of growing as a mother so that I can help her grow into someone who is secure, thoughtful, kind, and resilient. In some sense, I feel like I’m returning home to my work. The process of getting tenure and reflecting on how fear of not getting it changed me in ways that I regret…I feel how important it is to embrace who I truly am in my work and not mask. But embracing who I am involves exploration and experimentation. The quote below captures a bit of how I feel. Though I am very lucky to have colleagues who have the same values as me.
At least, this is what I did at first. I didn’t know this new version of myself well enough to integrate it properly. I didn’t know how to re-enter my life because I didn’t yet know who I had become on the journey, I was still sorting out what had changed. So, I hid. I didn’t let myself be seen by those who loved me, because I didn’t know how to explain myself to them. I understand why I did this: I felt raw—I was just coming out of my cocoon, my wings were still wet, I didn’t know how to fly yet.
My wings were still wet - lovely. 🦋
Maybe my wings are ready.