Writing My Own Script (or, the Long Way Out of the Loop): A Life Beyond Repetition

I was born into a sentence
already halfway spoken.
A grammar of expectations
cleared its throat before I could breathe—
family histories stitched into my skin,
rituals repeating like inherited weather,
the same prayers reheated,
the same fears folded and passed down
like clothes that never quite fit
but were worn anyway,
out of loyalty.

They called it life.
I called it familiar.

And familiarity is a quiet persuader.
It does not shout.
It leans in, warm with habit,
and says,
Why move?
Why risk the ache of beginning again
when this rhythm already knows your feet?

So I learned to walk in circles
and called it progress.
I learned to recycle yesterday’s thoughts
because they were biodegradable,
environmentally friendly to the mind—
no sharp edges,
no questions that could puncture
the thin membrane of comfort.

Each morning rose like a copy of the last,
a slightly altered sky,
a cloud repositioned
just enough to feel new.
I drank the same light.
Wore the same doubts.
Spoke in borrowed tones.

Somewhere, time kept a ledger,
but I was not reading it.

I was busy surviving the script
that had already been written for me—
birth, striving, noise, approval,
a careful accumulation of days
that looked good from a distance
and hollow up close.

The world praised efficiency.
I learned to optimize my breath.
To compress wonder into productivity.
To trim curiosity until it fit
inside a meeting agenda.

And still—
something restless tapped from the inside,
not loudly,
just enough to disturb sleep
at the exact moment dreams
began to matter.

It sounded like the ocean
inside a shell held too close to the ear.
Or the way trees remember wind
long after the storm has passed.

A question without punctuation:

Is this living,
or only repeating?

---

There came a day—
not dramatic, not cinematic—
when nothing happened
and everything shifted.

The kettle boiled.
The sun found the same window.
A bird rehearsed its ancient song
with no concern for applause.

And I noticed,
perhaps for the first time,
how effortlessly the world participates
in its own becoming.

The bird does not rehearse being a bird.
The cloud does not audition for the sky.
The river does not apologize
for eroding the rock.

They do not recycle themselves
out of fear.
They transform because movement
is their nature.

I stood there, holding a cup of tea,
and realized how much of my life
was a re-enactment
performed to earn belonging.

I had mistaken repetition for stability,
habit for home,
inheritance for destiny.

That morning did not announce awakening.
It simply loosened a knot.

And once loosened,
everything began to slip.

---

The old script whispered protest.
It said:
This is dangerous.
You will lose your place in the chorus.
You will forget your lines.

But another voice—
quieter, older than fear—
rose from somewhere beneath language.

It did not argue.
It invited.

It said:
What if life is not meant to be recycled,
but composted?
What if the past is not a prison,
but fertile ground?

I began to see how much of me
was living on borrowed energy—
ancestral expectations,
cultural muscle memory,
stories told so often
they began to pass for truth.

Some of them were beautiful.
Some were kind.
Some were survival codes
etched during harder centuries.

And some were simply tired.

Not wrong—
just exhausted.

Like a river forced to follow
a canal long after the land
has shifted.

---

So I paused.
Not in rebellion,
but in listening.

I listened to my breath
the way one listens to rain
when power goes out—
with patience,
with curiosity,
with no plan to fix anything.

I listened to the body
that had carried me faithfully
through years of ignoring it.

It spoke in aches and hungers,
in sudden joys at small things—
warm bread,
evening light on a wall,
the exact silence before sleep arrives.

I listened to the mind
when it stopped performing
and started confessing.

It said:
I am tired of being impressive.
I want to be true.

And in that confession,
a door opened.

Not outward—
inward.

---

Rewriting a life does not begin
with a declaration.
It begins with permission.

Permission to be unfinished.
Permission to disappoint old versions of yourself.
Permission to disappoint others, too.

This is the part no one romanticizes—
the unlearning.

The dismantling of identities
you once defended fiercely
because they kept you safe.

The awkward in-between
where the old story no longer fits
and the new one hasn’t learned
its own language yet.

Here, time feels different.
Linear days loosen their grip.
Moments stretch, then collapse.
You realize healing is not progress
but a spiral—
returning again and again
to the same themes
with slightly more tenderness.

I learned that growth does not always look like expansion.
Sometimes it looks like subtraction.

Fewer explanations.
Fewer performances.
Fewer borrowed dreams.

More silence.
More listening.
More space for what has been waiting
patiently beneath the noise.

---

And then, almost without noticing,
the world widened.

Not because it changed—
but because I did.

The sky grew deeper,
as if I had finally adjusted my eyes.
Stars were no longer decorations
but ancient witnesses,
burning through time
without urgency.

I felt small, yes—
but not insignificant.

There is a difference
between being erased
and being part of something vast.

The cosmos does not ask us to matter.
It invites us to participate.

I began to feel my life
as a single note
inside an immeasurable chord—
not louder or softer,
just necessary.

And with that came relief.

I did not need to be exceptional.
I needed to be honest.

---

Writing my own script did not mean
burning all previous pages.

Some chapters deserved reverence.
Some characters deserved forgiveness.
Some scenes needed to be thanked
before being released.

Recycling a life is not the same
as renewing it.

Recycling keeps the shape,
changes the color,
calls it transformation.

But writing anew—
that requires listening
to what wants to be born now,
not what once kept you safe.

It means choosing presence
over prediction.

It means trusting that meaning
emerges not from control,
but from attention.

From standing still long enough
for life to speak back.

---

I no longer rush to name who I am.
I let the question breathe.

Some days I am quiet water.
Some days I am fire learning restraint.
Some days I am soil—
dark, unseen, essential.

I no longer ask,
What should I become?
I ask,
What is asking to become through me?

This shift is subtle.
It changes everything.

Because now, the world is not a stage
where I perform survival.
It is a conversation
I am allowed to join.

Even suffering speaks differently.
It becomes a teacher,
not a verdict.

Even uncertainty softens—
a companion instead of an enemy.

---

And so, I write this not as an ending,
but as a clearing.

A place where the old scripts
can be set down gently,
without shame.

A place where the future
does not need to be conquered,
only listened to.

Where living is less about recycling meaning
and more about composting experience
until something honest grows.

I walk now with fewer answers
and more attention.

I notice how the moon
never apologizes for its phases.
How trees let go
without asking if they are ready.
How rivers trust gravity
without understanding the sea.

This is the education I trust now.

The kind that does not rush.
The kind that humbles and expands
at the same time.

---

If there is a script I am writing,
it is written in pencil,
open to revision by weather,
by love,
by grief,
by wonder.

It is written in breath
and silence,
in the space between heartbeats,
in the pause before choosing fear
or choosing truth.

And perhaps that is the quiet revolution:
to live as if your life
is not a product to be perfected,
but a conversation with the infinite
that unfolds one honest moment at a time.

I am no longer recycling my days.
I am listening for what wants to grow.

And in that listening,
I am finally—
slowly—
becoming.

---

Here are two previous posts from pebblegalaxy.blog:

1. “The Folly of the Endless Mirror”
   🔗 https://pebblegalaxy.blog/2025/12/28/the-folly-of-the-endless-mirror/
   Excerpt:
   “In the quiet hollow of the self, where whispers pool like dew on fern fronds, a figure stands, arms outstretched… Beneath the canopy, where roots entwine unseen, the figure pauses, breath caught on the lip of revelation… Awaken to the pebble’s wisdom— small, unyielding, river-kissed.”
2. “The Way the Moment Walks Through You”
   🔗 https://pebblegalaxy.blog/2025/12/26/the-way-the-moment-walks-through-you/
   Excerpt:
   “There comes a moment when walking becomes more than movement, when breath remembers it is part of the sky… You are walking, yet something larger walks through you— a rhythm borrowed from rivers, from migrating birds… And sometimes… there is only motion moving itself, breath breathing breath, life listening to life.”

---

For a poetic exploration of inner freedom and belonging beyond repetition — themes that mirror “Writing My Own Script” — listen to Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese,” featured on On Being.