I was getting off of the bus from campus to my apartment complex and this butterfly followed me in through the gates and landed on my hand as I was walking to my building.
Now I have a thing about butterflies. I love them and they're sort of my signature thing. I pick a lot of myspace layouts (haha, laugh at that, I know) because they feature beautiful butterflies, and I believe in a symbolistic nature behind them - once I even picked a birthday card for my sister over another option because it had butterflies on it. I liked the cards the same, but the deciding factor was the butterfly. I just think they are a magical creature.
My 'coming-of-age' experience is one that I prefer to liken with that of a butterfly growing from the cocoon. I don't know why but I've always had this reverence for them and their beauty. Anyway, back to today's story. I let it sit for a moment and as I was approaching my building I shook it off. I didn't really mean to do it that hard and don't worry nothing happened to the butterfly itself, it just flew away. But I sort of wish I hadn't done that. I know I wouldn't have carried it on my hand all the way into my apartment but still...I can't help but be a little regretful.
This is the second time in the last few months that a butterfly has landed on me. Nothing of great significance seems to happen afterwards and maybe it really means nothing; a realist might certainly agree with that last statement. But I'm a believer in the mystical. There are a lot of things that the human mind can't explain or random occurences that can't be called 'average' or 'normal'. Besides, what fun would life be without a little intrigue and mystery? You can't have it all figured out or what's the point?
On the bus ride home I was thinking about society and how we're all programmed to behave a certain way and think a certain way - and if you don't believe that, then you've already succumbed to the limits that society has imposed on you and your life. That may be fine for some people, but I'd like to think that life from an individual viewpoint must be figured out. You must decide for yourself what you accept as truth and what you don't, especially about the world you live in. But it is a process to do so and whatever the end result, is how you make it from one day to the next, and on until the end of your life.
This line of thinking happens to me often when I come fresh out of a 'Sociology of the Family' class session. So much of what we do and how we are today as a generation of the world are results of how people used to think and how we've had to decide as a people what was acceptable and what isn't. This is an ever-changing process. New children are born, and the children of previous generations are now parents. Parents who decide what they teach their children and what morals, values and skills they instill in them as well. It is then up to the children to go out into the institutions of socialization and share what their parents have taught them. They find a group of children and they attach themselves to one another based on the similar ideas or maybe even the completely different ideas that they are exposed to. This new generation of children grow up and go out into the world and rock, shape and challenge the mold set by their predecessors.
I am a self-described optimist. I'd like to believe that one day, we'll see the end of world hunger, the start of world peace, the curing of Cancer and AIDS, the decline and extinction of things like rape and murder. I know these are lofty ideas - and they seem that way because we live in a world rife with all of this chaos - but one thing I can still hold onto is that it may not be plausible, but it is entirely possible. That one standing fact is all I need. I can get from one day to the next with that knowledge.
Every person wants to believe their life will mean something. As Bobby Singer says in the television show 'Supernatural': "Most people go their entire lives without moving so much as the dirt it takes to bury them." That really strikes a chord with me. I want my life to mean something. I want someone in the future...maybe a politician, or an environmentalist, or maybe the president, to look at my life and be inspired in theirs to do more, to be more. Now even if that doesn't happen, I still know that I've done something that can have an impact on those around me. I've chosen my optimism, and my principles and my ideals and I try to live for them. If someone can turn their day around because of something I've said, or if they can pass on a good deed because I did one for them, then I'm happy with that. I've made some small difference for someone, somewhere.
That's all I really want. That's all I can really hope for.
All we can really do is love one another.
Signed,
A Fabulous Gay Man,
Queen Trixie J.D. the First
(Photo from: http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/photos/2007/08/butterfly_yellow-flowers_01.jpg)
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