When you're underwater, the skin your fingers wrinkle up because it helps grip objects. When you're underwater, you still have to come up for air. And when you are walking on dry land again, the skin on your fingers smoothen out, because you don't need the wrinkles anymore.
Sometimes when we are underwater, when we cannot breathe, when we are on the brink of giving up, we desperately search for something to hold on to. When we drown in loneliness, or anxiety, or bitterness, our minds, or values even, begin to alter. They change with our circumstances. Most times when they alter, they alter to make us stronger. They wrinkle up and adapt to the pain. This change makes us tolerant. It makes pain bearable. Whatever we focus on helps us to at least remain in the same course and not get pulled away by the currents. And most times, we survive. These wrinkles help grip the ladder that brings us back to the world.
And then what? Why do we carry these changed values with us even after we have surfaced? Why do we carry these defences when there is no need for them anymore? These defences begin to become weapons aimed at ourselves. It's not getting out of the water that's difficult, it's learning to walk on dry ground that's tough. It's learning to love the smooth skin without hating ourselves.
When we're underwater, we still have to come up for air. We were not made to live underwater. If we can satisfy ourselves with a few breaths of fresh air during our bad times, why can't we waste our breath on land where air is in abundance? Why do we hate our smooth skin? Why do we insist on keeping the form we took during our bad days? It was necessary at that point in time. But not anymore. It is okay to be happy. It is okay to want to change your life. It is okay to change your mind. You don't have to carry around your wrinkled skin when it wants to smoothen out.
But I am a whale and I live underwater.