limbo

L – living in between two known ways of being
I – immediate anxiety
M- meeting old fears
B- becoming a new dragon
O- opportunity
 
  After 25 years of stasis, the warrior dragon found himself in limbo. He so disliked this horrendous, in-between state of unknowns and uncertainty. His greatest fear was not leaving the known but encountering himself in the middle terrain of dread.  He knew what this could mean; loneliness, regret, could haves and would haves, and worse, those really bad habits.
    
     It would be easier to run to the next secure state no matter how disruptive, but he promised himself to resist temptation and hold steady.  Staying steady while experiencing shame and self -medicating patterns was just impossible so he sought a different way to cope. And he clearly did not want to be told to breathe, pray, and meditate, as he taught other dragons how to do this and it simply was not working.
 
     He had already begun to sense that raw, niggly feeling of loneliness blended with a fear of being left behind. The little dragon had been a bastard child kept on the fringe of the family as a sad, bad, reminder of what was.  It felt like a nauseating black hole of an existence that made his need for security quite clear. He knew that leaving the known meant that the feeling of not being cherished, much less wanted, would return as a gripping despair, one that he felt in his mother’s womb.  “Oh, what to do,” he asked, wringing his front claws. 
 
     The dragon had shown up with a picture of himself as a hatchling, white and pure. I could smell the distinct scent of innocence just by looking at that picture, no matter the atmosphere of guilt that he was born from and in to. We admired this about his little self. Exempt from guilt and accusations he was innocent, even in his unwelcomed arrival, he was innocent. He had been indoctrinated into the realm of guilt and inconvenience and taken it in to be his truth. His head drooped and his voice became meek.
 
     Opportunity was the word that kept repeating in his head. He had interpreted this as a new way of being, a new life, and a new relationship, but he began to see that the opportunity was to integrate old, old feelings of being unwanted and disregarded.  True to his dragon nature, he beckoned courage, trust, and willingness as his allies and met the baby dragon within, the one he saw in that photo.   And he loved, loved, loved that baby, so much. This time his head bowed to the child within instead of drooped, and his voice quieted rather than being meek, and he spoke as a mighty father would, welcoming his child-self into his heart. He realized that he had rejected this part of himself just as his parents had.  Rather than waiting for his parents’ approval, he gave it to himself and the freeze of shame within began to melt.
 
    This was his new limbo state, a time of welcoming and softening. This time he wiped tears from his face very gently, sharing that he usually wipes his tears away with hate and haste. What a difference; a newfound gentleness that he had time to integrate too. No hurry. He felt ready to linger in limbo, as long as it took, without a need to escape grief or hide from his hatchling history anymore. He felt like a true dragon now, strong, secure, and mature!