Monsters in all of us

Whenever a tragedy makes the news about someone "senselessly" killing another, people tend to ask what kind of monster would do such a thing?

Years ago, I read an amazing book "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker, and somewhere in there he talks about how humans are all capable of such horrific things. All of us. We call these people monsters, because we don't want to see the things in them that might look a lot like ourselves.

I spent the day going over old court documents from my childhood, and as hurt as I was to revisit some of the things I remembered, and some of the things I had forgotten, I was shocked to read a letter I had written to my dad in which I revealed to him my own monster. Maybe I wasn't the worst teen out there, but I was nonetheless troubled.

I read about, and then remembered, the darkness I once lived in. I wonder how close I was to that monster that people would've wondered about. I wonder what kept me from becoming the demon I told my dad about. And I wonder what he thought of his little girl's words. We all have a measure of darkness in us.

A couple years after I wrote those words, I asked my swim coach if people could change...like really change. Change down to their core. I specifically wondered if I was destined to become a product of my upbringing. After thinking about it for a moment, he replied "Sure. Yeah. If a person changed their core values, the things they found important...yes, they can change into a totally different person".

I wanted to change. I wanted to be someone my dad was proud of. Someone my coach was proud of. Someone I could be proud of.

And it took years. Many, many years. We talk about how fast time flies, but I think that's when we just skim the memories. When I stop and think, and take inventory, and let the memories play, I realize it's been a damn long road. But I'm starting to get it. I'm starting to live. I'm starting to bloom out of the mud, like the lotus flower. 

And we all house that monster, that ability to become something less than what we're proud of. We've all got a right to our scars. But what better way to show our strength than to rise out of all our darkness and become something else. Something we're not afraid to show to the world.