She spent a decade inside the small attic of the house, where there was no window to welcome the ray of light, and even sunbeams couldn’t find a way to enter the room. Without the window, at times, she felt claustrophobic as she wanted to breathe in fresh air but she couldn’t.

One day, she curved a window of her own in the room. Every night, she waited to open the window when everyone fell asleep so that nobody could see her trying to have a glimpse of life. When she opened the window for the first time, the cold breeze touched her face and she breathed life, once again.

“Ahh, life seems so beautiful! I couldn’t breathe in the air for so many years, and now, this feels like magic!”, she whispered gazing at the night sky.

She looked at the stars, wrote poetry with the moon, and slept in the lap of the soft white moonbeam. When it was about to dawn, she woke up from sleep and closed the window so that nobody could know about her night adventures. For the entire day, she was busy weaving her own fairytale with her dreams.

After ages, when she stepped outside of the attic, she was afraid that maybe, she became a perfect misfit in the world. She was afraid of being recognized as an outsider. She was afraid of being caught by others for the magic that she received as a gift from her beloved friend, the night.

When she came to the light, after a long time being imprisoned inside that cage of despair and darkness, she looked around and smiled.

She thought the world must have changed a lot. But when she went to the places she once loved to visit very often, and saw everything was just the same as before, she realized, the only change that happened in the last years, was a silent metamorphosis.

It was a journey where a caterpillar became a butterfly.

Unfurling her innermost dimension, to the poetry of hope, she opened her bun and whispered to the air, “Let the gentle breeze blow my hair”.

Slowly, gently, she kissed life.

The only change she could feel was that a caged bird got her wings back. Over the years, the only transformation that happened with the world around her was a transition that occurred in her inner world of thoughts, reflections, and stillness.

And she came to know one of the most beautiful truths of life, that the beauty of transformation does not always belong to the outer world. When you take a pause from life and introspect, you will see a glimpse of the inner shift and you will be surprised to observe the pattern of transformation within you.

Because it was you. Only you, and it will be you, always.

(This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2023.)