Breaking Free and Shedding a Skin – Part 2

It’s worth it!

Sometimes in order to break free, to grow, we need to shed the skin of our lives. Snakes shed their skins as they grow.  Maybe they have something to teach us.

Back in October 2017, after 23 years, Tim and I decided that we’d stop being a vicar and vicar’s wife.  In April this year we left an entire way of life, a community and the vicarage where we’d lived for the last 10 years.  In March, after further reading on how snakes shed their skins, I wrote the poem below.

 

SHEDDING YOUR SKIN – PART 2

 

The skin has come off.

It lies there coiled on the floor.

 

The hardest bit was starting

At the head.

Rubbing at 30 years of habit.

Worrying it, dislodging

thick protective certainties.

Finding the sharp necessary stones

To pierce the old skin.

 

That first breaking!

That relief!

                      Beginning to breathe easily                     .

Smarting with the rawness.

Then, seeing more clearly

How trapped I’ve been.

Rage rising

Spitting out of me, spurring me on.

 

Tearing, scratching, I look around for help,

Some cannot see the problem,

Others irritate and poke.

But there are those who celebrate,

Thank you!

Affirming, soothing, loving,

They apply a gentle pressure for me

To pull against.

 

Then the slow, slow, moving

Wrinkle by wrinkle out of the casing.

Cell by cell

Whole sections peeling off gloriously

While others snap and tear.

The tail snatches at the last of the skin

Trying to find a purchase

But it’s too late. I’m out.

I am out.

 

I stretch and feel the rippling flex of flesh

No tightness at the eyes.

Or pressure on the chest.

The vast expanse of ‘new’

Is fresh and frightening.

 

The old skin lies useless,

dry, translucent,

Beautiful designs

Etched into the calcified cells.

 

I need to rest and hide awhile.

I leave the old skin behind.

 

I don’t look back.