Why Curiosity Didn’t Kill the Elephant

I’m convinced that I have the world’s craziest cat.

I have scars all over my arms and hands from her flipping out and attacking me at random times.

I used to always try to fight her back. Try picking her up and tossing her across the bed and running off. However, all that did was make her want to attack me more. She would chase after me and wrap herself around my ankles.

I hate cats. I always have.

Yet and still, 10 years later, she’s still here…curling up to me at night…sometimes laying on top of the scars that she forgot she created.

That’s what life is like to me.

It’s moments of intense pain, but also moments of tenderness and love that make you not dwell on the pain so much.

We all go through hard times. We all suffer in some aspect at some point in time.

We can either live in that negative moment or fear of a moment like that again or we can accept that moment for what it was and learn from the lesson within it.

There is always a blessing in the storm.

I’ve always been a huge hippie. Everyone knows this.

I’m always about peace, happiness, and self-awareness. I try to teach myself to live in light and love.

I’m now starting to realize more and more that at some point I allowed my light to be dimmed. That positive, upbeat hippie mentality that I had developed got lost along my journey of discovering myself.

I’ve always had this crazy obsession with elephants. I use to have a lot of elephant jewelry and trinkets with elephants on them (once I got to college I didn’t discuss my love as much because I did not want people to think I was attempting to be Greek-affiliated).

My love for elephants stemmed from my childhood though. It was oddly enough from a story that my pastor told in church when I was in the 6^th grade. It was not a story of an elephant who triumphed or did something gracious.

He told us a story about how they would train elephants in the zoo.

He shared that when elephants were young, zookeepers would put a chain around the ankle of the elephant. This way, when the animal would try to roam off, he would only be able to get so far before the chain would pull him back and keep him from going elsewhere.

As the elephant would get older, he would become more and more used to the bounds of that chain and more and more aware that there were limitations on how far he could go.

In turn, when the elephant had fully grown up, they would take the chain off of the ankle of the elephant.

I remember being a kid and always lighting up at this part. Finally, the elephant was free!

But that was not the case. The chain would come off, but the elephant had known nothing but the boundaries forced upon him for so long that he still would stay within that same area, afraid to go any further because he thought he would get stopped by the chains that weren’t even there anymore.

I fell in love with elephants out of sadness. I fell in love with them out of pity.

I fell in love because I was scared to be that very thing. A person who looked out and only saw the places that I would never be able to reach because chains had been wrapped around my ankle years prior.

Stop living your life inside of a box.

Yes, life is hard sometimes, but you can’t let that negative thing that happened wrap itself around your leg and latch on.

I miss always finding the happiness in a sad situation.

Very painful things have happened to me in life. People told me that I should be angry. People told me that I should be hurt. People said it was only natural to act out a little. People said I had the right to get upset and show it to the world.

That is not really me though. It’s become too much of a burden to carry.

This weekend I had to let go of old friendships that were causing too much heaviness on my heart. I had to send out some of the most painful messages I’ve ever written in my life. I counteracted that pain by then sending out a few “thank you” messages.

We should learn from our pain. Not dwell in it.

Find your peace. Find that moment that cuddles up at your feet at night, covering your scars from the previous day.

Stay blessed, friends.

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