I hadn't realised it until lately- the extent which the darkness had stunted my growth in my first two years of medical school. Groping in the dark and losing my balance, I withdrew further and further away from people, medicine and life. I quit dancing, enjoying music, eating, cooking, concentrating, simply- living. And now that I've started to breathe again, started to be surprised at the extent to which how little I could concentrate in class in the past, I'm exulting in the infinite freedom and joy that new life brings, which is mindblowing, overwhelming, to say the least.
It is as if I've returned to life with a Vengeance, and all at once, I find myself immersed in good literature, and the million things which I had drifted away from for 2 years. As I discovered my appetite for food again, I discovered an insatiable hunger for beauty, music, medicine and life too. All at once, I discover I am concentrating better, and have the capacity to try harder to- something I found impossible to once upon a time. All at once, I want to dance to the music, want to master the flute, want to write, paint, move, sing, and study medicine, too. All at once, I want to try new things, things I was too afraid to do- like learning a new genre of dance, listening to new genres of music, cooking new foods, trying new sports, learning world history, writing and painting a new Story that's still hibernating in my head. It's about Trains, and Growing Up.
I used to be so afraid, because I couldn't trust if I could let go enough without losing my balance.
But now that I've found God as my ultimate anchor whom I can trust in storms, it is as if I am living Life again for the first time, and I'm no longer afraid to. It feels like I am discovering a person within whom I never knew before- I had been living in the black box for so long that I no longer knew who I was, what it was which I liked or didn't like. And now, it amuses me even to discover I that I do like to dance, as much as I say that I can't or don't, and that I do like ketchup- and quite a lot too.
I took myself to a symphonic concert last week. On a whim. It was something I'd never done before. I'd taken myself to arthouse movies, plays, art exhibitions before, but not to a musical concert. I never quite had the ear for music- memories of The Piano Teacher From Hell still gives me goosebumps. I'd learnt the drums before, then taken vocal lessons- but never found it within me to perform. Then one morning I woke up and decided to try again, dialled the number in the classified ads and signed up for flute lessons. I can't believe how much I like playing music now, and unspeakable thanks goes to The Piano Teacher From Long Ago.
I am beginning to challenge the boundaries I set for myself, the rules which no longer make sense, question the fences I'd unwittingly built- out of fear, anxiety, for a lack of confidence.
It was a spontaneous decision. That evening, I just decided I wanted to listen to music alone. Like the way I decide sometimes that the pouring rain may be just perfect to walk right into.
There was a special segment where the children's choir sang. And as I listened to them and the orchestra and allowed the carols, symphonies to lull, tease and grip me, I found a star shining above me, a flower blooming within me, and a million little broken pieces, broken by fear, finding their way to one another to piece together a part of my heart, an Artist's heart, which had withered in the darkness. And by myself, in the midst of the music, away from the maddening crowd, away from companionship and banter, I think I found my Centre again.
It was glowing, and growing. It was pulsating, restless in the light.
I had never experienced anything quite like that feeling. Not for a long time. And the more I explore, the more I find myself amused, amazed, tickled at the vast, vast beauty of this Big, BIG world God has created, that I hid away from for the many months of my life. You mean He made this good food, and good music and good colours? And bicycles and dance and voices pretty as birds'?
And as one of the children's voices rang high, crystal-clear, vulnerable with a tinge of tremulity, up into the concert hall, some hard, dead thing within me broke open and tears started streaming down my cheeks.
The artist in me suddenly choked into life again, like a rusty steam train beginning on its five-thousand-mile journey. For so long I hovered between sickness and healing- my voice cracked into a squeak whenever I sang in front of people, my body always froze when I felt watched, though it was charged to move to a tune. And now I think the dead, hard thing is broken, I think I can find the courage and stead to live, dance, sing again. And at that moment of realisation, I was happy.
So on that concert seat in the huge esplanade auditorium, I started to cry.
I was happy listening to music I never appreciated before. Happy to discover it, and discover myself in the process. Happy being by myself, letting myself move with the music- yes good music always moves you, I insist. Happy that I could come away from the busyness to be alone for a bit, for a quiet moment where my time wasn't demanded of, where I was neither judged nor measured up to.
And all at once, I think my Centre found its way back to where it always belonged to- back to my heart, back Home, where a girl, now no longer so little anymore, with her twirling skirt and paintbrush and hair let down, can dance and move and sing, exultantly, joyfully, with neither fear nor inhibition, to the music once lost, in the sunshine once hidden.
It was a happy feeling.
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