The Quake

Once in every life there is an earthquake. It shakes to the core everything you thought you were.

Scales fall from your eyes, long held illusions flee away and the foundations of self are obliterated. All is now rubble around you, the frail but eternal structure of life is all that remains. It matters not how old you are, or how you have lived your life, who you thought you had become, for now you are scrubbed raw like a newborn.

Some do not survive. They cave to the terror of the quake. They build a crust around the trauma, becoming a distorted version of who they could be. These are the bitter, the rancorous, the numb.

Those who do climb from the disaster with wonder still in their hearts will live to see a new day, to be that rock of experience which others grasp to be rescued. 

The pain of it cannot be compared to the delight in the newness of everything. First, the shock of seeing your true self reflected, then the rebirth of who you are, the promise of who you will become. For there is not a tremor without cause, without its redeeming quality. 

We that have emerged know. No pain need be wasted.