Shedding my skin

These past two years I think I've become who I'm going to be for the long haul.

Everybody does their evolving at some point, it just took me a while to go from monkey to man.

I've shed layers of the person I used to be and in return have emerged as something completely different. Each layer molting off over time, exposing a new, softer layer than the one before it. I guess I've become more forgiving of myself during this whole process.

It's made me more forgiving of other people, too.

I've shed my angel wings for more undelicate things, embracing the less refined parts of myself, giving away the poetry over prose parts to alley dumpsters and dirty street gutters.

Like stripping off rain soaked clothes in the middle of a storm, I've become lighter, freer, shivering in my new, thinner skin.

But it's better this way, I think.

I'm more exposed than I've ever been and for once in my life, I don't think that makes me more vulnerable.

This is a happy feeling.

There have been moments of crisis, doubt, phases of indifference. I've sat on the edge of candid conversations that didn't turn out the way I thought. Relationships have bloomed and withered in moments that seem as long as lifetimes.

And with them, each layer came off. Wet rags flung to the ground.

So here I am. Baptized by the seven hundred and thirtieth turn of the calendar page.

I can't wait for tomorrow, and not just because I get better looking every day ...