Chrysalis

Etymology
From Latin chrysalis, from Ancient Greek χρυσαλλίς (khrusallís), from χρυσός (khrusós, “gold”), because of the color of some of them.

  Noun
chrysalis (plural chrysalises or chrysalides)

1.    The pupa of a butterfly or moth, enclosed inside a cocoon, in which metamorphosis takes place.
2.    The cocoon itself.
3.    (figuratively) A strong constraint.

From Wiktionary, retrieved 10:21 AM 8/3/18

I’d said elsewhere I am in aestivation, but I feel more and more this is not true. Instead, I seem to be a chrysalis.

A pupa that is a chrysalis in a cocoon digests itself, entirely dissolving. Professor Martha Weiss says the butterfly which emerges, dissolving or cutting its way free of the cocoon, remembers its time as a caterpillar despite a near total dissolution inside the cocoon.

Whatever I was a year ago could not last; it is not merely that all things change, but that it was especially unstable. This leads me to where I am right now, in the midst of realizations, of a mental whiteboard of plans for how to proceed, and of divesting myself of things which have caused me a great deal of pain and could not continue indefinitely.

When I am stable again, when I have emerged, I shall try to learn how to engage in politics as my new self, whatever that may be. Moreso, I shall try to learn how to engage in my personal life as this new self.

I hope this new self doesn’t have these panic attack cry jags every day. Those would be troubling in the long term; it’s been two months and they’re troubling already, especially during spans when they are, in fact, daily occurrences.

I will need other people to help me know myself as I complete this metamorphosis, or rather this particular phase thereof; like the song says, even the things that seem still are still changing. Nevertheless, there’s a kind of settling, a shaking out, which must surely occur once this goddamned summer is over. Perhaps the depression will lift; perhaps I will learn how to operate around it more effectively if it does not. Perhaps we’ll find the meds work fine when I’m not in direct sunlight; perhaps they won’t, and I can taper off and start eating corned beef again (or, for that matter, liver with fava beans and a light chianti. None of which I actually like.)

The important part is that this phase, too, cannot last indefinitely; already there have been changes, and the pace of these changes cannot continue. The season will pass, and something different will emerge.

So far he’s a nonbinary dude who keeps a mustache because it doesn’t bother him to do so, wears a rather smashing cap when the weather permits, and is probably going to try to run a Freire-style class among his fellow Aspies to try to determine what goes wrong when we try to organize with allistics (still not used to that term) and what accommodations to allow us to safely engage with others in a context where so many people are so easily hurt. As it stands, I have discovered that simply walking on eggshells and accepting whatever hurtful things happen to me as necessary evils is not the way to go. If they deserve my compassion, so do I deserve it not only from them but from myself.

Let us discover what I shall be. I long to know what he is. I long for my wife to be a part of that, to have her with me now and forever, and I hope she can help me discover who this new person is, who emerges from this cocoon and takes wing. I fear to burden her, but she has a right to be a part of this process, because she loves me and has been my security, and I love her and have been hers, and it would be an injustice and a dreadful logistical error to try to handle this by myself. But I have other friends as well, who can help me know myself in ways she cannot, and I should also work with them to discover who emerges and how to accommodate that person, to mitigate the Henry which still exists and has a right to his thoughts but needs to just sulk over his spumoni now and then (Dream Song 4), but who is a source of strength when strength is needful for myself or others.

I grow weary and impatient, but I shall rest as best I can and we shall see what shakes out, what remains when the changes are, for a time, done and the thing which stands in my place is more resistant to its environment than the chrysalis hiding in its cocoon.


Playlist:
Best Imitation Of Myself (Ben Folds Five)
Your Most Valuable Possession (Ben Folds Five)
Everyone Says Hi (David Bowie)
anti-nostalgic (Bad Luck, from Gravitation)
Passover (Joy Division)
Everybody’s Lonely (Harry Chapin)
New Slang (The Shins)
The Biggest Lie (Elliott Smith)
Faraway Promise (Yasunori Mitsuda, from Xenogears)
People Ain’t No Good (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds)
Mr. Dandy (BLUEW, from Bubblegum Crisis)
Your Possible Pasts (Pink Floyd)