So there’s this tree called the Lodgepole pine, its pinecones need heat from a wildfire to melt its resin so the seeds can be released to make more pine trees. Weird right? What kind of living thing requires fire, devastation, in order to propagate?
Apparently this living thing writing to you right now also does.
But that’s the advantage of the Lodgepole pine – no small thing like a predatory squirrel or strong gust of wind can knock the seeds out of their protective shell. No, you need to come correct when getting to these seeds my friend and only fire will do.
I was recently called a Lodgepole pinecone. Hey, I’ve been called worse.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, such is the life of a Lodgepole pine, such is the life I’ve lived so far and such is the life of all of us who have emerged anew from the flames of trauma.
Why can’t we all be born like regular trees and just live and grow under normal circumstances? Sorry but for the trauma-plagued, that just wasn’t our lot in life. But it doesn’t mean we’re down for the count. We just need a fire under our ass to get our shit together.
I’ve said before I’ve always felt that on the graph of happiness my baseline is naturally lower than most people’s. I’ve felt this way for so long I forgot what I was like “before”, before pain and heartache and life got a hold of me and changed my brain chemistry into what it is today.
I won’t regale you with all my stories of woe, there’s not enough time in a day anyway. But yeah, shit’s gotten real bad a time or two (or twelve) in the past – abuse, loss, suicide, death, among other things.
How the fuck does someone deal with all that and try to have some kind of life? How does someone even find the motivation to want to have any kind of life at all?
Somehow I did, at least I slogged through as best I could. Just me and my pinecone seeds, protected, guarded, entombed, year after year after year.
Until one day I sparked a fire.
So as I’ve said, sometimes things just hit you like a ton of fucking bricks.
You wake up one day, not any special day, just a regular slog-filled day, and you go you know what, I’m fucking done. The six hour hike to an alpine lake in Colorado I did recently with my sister was nothing compared to the uphill path I’ve been tripping on most of my life.
So what did I do?
I signed up for therapy…again. Third times a charm.🤞 This time though, I was ready. Ready to finally face all that has haunted me for the last forty years.
Man, the dumpster fire of shit you find out in therapy. You can’t fix what’s wrong until you get to the root of the problem. My roots ran super deep apparently, further down than I even realized. Further than any other therapist had yet discovered.
The things you experience in childhood have a much bigger impact than you think. Apparently I internalized everything and unknowingly felt responsible for things that happened when I was young, and for everything thereafter.
Responsibility led to guilt and shame and in the heart of that laid this core sentiment: I’m a shitty person and my feelings aren’t important.
Hard to have a normal happiness baseline when you go through life really, truly believing that as a human, you basically suck.
What do guilt-ridden, sucky humans do? They close up and hide, they keep their seeds safe from everything, safe from making seemingly bad decisions, safe from expressing their worthless feelings, safe from hurting people, safe from getting hurt. Safe from making any human connections at all.
Nothing could penetrate my pinecone heart.
Fucking mindblowing.
But it’s not all bad. My therapist said I was like a Lodgepole pine.
The perk of being a pinecone is that I survived where others might not have, and I didn’t totally disintegrate. Though I felt like I was going to many times, I never fully broke. For me, it was my survival technique of internalizing that helped me bear the trauma.
Guess what though, I don’t need those techniques anymore. It’s time to break the shell and release the pain, release the false sense of self I learned over the years, and open up to being who I was meant to be in the first place. Therapy has been the fire, the devastation I needed to clear away the mess and find myself again.
I won’t lie to you, it’s a slow go. Forty years of learned behavior doesn’t just magically transform overnight. But I’m getting there. I say this about most things: if I can do it, so can you.
Case in point, I recently went across the country to a wedding by myself where I only knew the bride and groom. Yes, ONLY the bride and groom. No plus-one, no wingman, didn’t even know any of the couple’s friends or family. Who the fuck does that? But the couple getting married are special people who I love. I wanted to be there to see them get married.
Shockingly enough, I had an awesome time. Who knew? I expected to be my hide-in-the-corner, park-my-butt-at-the-bar-alone self all night, but instead I danced like a fool with complete strangers and enjoyed the party all the while with a genuine smile on my face. If I can face my fears, don’t be scared, you can too.
I didn’t meet any cute boys there. “Don’t bring sand to the beach” doesn’t always work. But I did reacquaint myself with someone I hadn’t seen in forty years…
Myself. The more open, self-assured, non-wallflower self I used to be before trauma tried to swallow me whole.
It’s crazy the shit that can happen when your pinecone melts.
The process of a tree holding onto its seeds until an environmental trigger like fire comes along is called serotiny. Sounds like the word serendipity. How appropriate.
❤️
CM
10/6/23
