The River

We begin life as sediment, flowing through the river. We are both formless and the potential of endless possibility.

We drift to the bed of the river, collecting into a single thing. In the crucible of childhood, outside forces begin to affect us, compress us, collapse us into shapes, to harden us. Our possibilities become bounded. The shapes are not perfect, and are often scraggly and jagged, dangerous to others. When others find us in this state, they may find us painful and difficult to handle, even if they think of us as beautiful or alluring.

Then something happens, something that started up the river long before you, finds you. It is force that dislodges you. It could be another rock, a boulder, or a rush from the river itself, but something moves you from the comfort of your resting place and sends you tumbling down the river, rough and scraggly edges and all.

On the way down the river, your edges begin to collide with other things. The bank of the river, other rocks, both the ones tumbling like you and the ones stuck in the sediment. One of your edges may be the thing that dislodges another and sends them on the same journey. Each collision knocks a bit of sharpness off of an edge. And each time it hurts. We might call these collisions heart break, we might blame each other for them, but the truth is, we collide because we share the same river.

Over time, the collisions become easier, because the edges have all smoothed off. Now when you collide you see it as it is, and you call it love. If someone were to find you now, they might marvel at how the river could craft such a beautiful, elegant and smooth thing. You might pause here, and revel in your hard earned beauty. But you’ve learned along the way, that moving through the river is how you become who you are. Even when it hurts.

Eventually the river will take you again, send you tumbling down, knocking bits of you away. You realize now that the bits are not really lost, they are just more of you becoming a part of the river, just like they always have. You collide with others, with the bank and become smaller and smaller, until you're just a pebble. You keep tumbling further, knocking more and more bits away.

Until we become sediment, flowing through the river.