Circles

So much of life is a circle, and, in many circles you discover, there is so much of life. Galaxies collide across the vast expanse of space and time. There is death and destruction on a cosmic scale. This gives birth to stellar nurseries with new suns, planets, and possibly life that otherwise never would have existed, glorious, and one day destined for the grave again. Closer to home, the seasons serve as nature’s celebration of the circular, rot and decay not only death but the compost of life, the stillness of a frozen forest secretly seeded with the animations of new beginnings. Some believe the soul’s journey is a circle, a phoenix reborn in novel forms, again and again, until finally freed. Some of life’s circles you would never wish to escape: friendship, romance, the gift of a child, the looping here consisting of love requited and unrequited a thousand times over, the heart a myriad of broken pieces, the makings of a most beautiful mosaic. At times you might be traveling the wide circumference of a circle and not even know it. The revelation of the curvature of your journey can be jarring and disorienting. It is only when you realize you have come back around to an experience you believed you left behind that you are graced with the opportunity to reengage life with new depth and wonder, the illusion of the linear evaporating like a morning mist.

A tautology is kind of circle, sometimes regarded as the needless repetition of a statement or idea, yet also an incredibly simple, helpful way of reinforcing the reality of a thing, an affirmation, mantra, or tool of self-talk anyone can employ regarding things in your life that might be difficult to swallow. “Yesterday is yesterday.” There is no changing the things you have said or done. The past is gone. But, today is a new day. “It is what it is.” Your present situation flows from what happened yesterday, and might be changed going forward. For the moment, however, this is unequivocally your reality, so, embrace it. “I am who I am." All the “should” and “ought” prescriptions of others be damned, there are some things etched in your DNA, basic to your being, making you the amazing person you are, just as you are, a “you” the world has never known and never will again.