Out for a late night walk.

That primal, want-to-run-through-the-woods-naked urge strikes as I notice grass peaking up through the cracked pavement.

I am that grass.

I am struggling to rise above the layers of asphalt covering my raw earth.

All of me is striving to blossom, to unleash my potential into a full open field of tall, green grass.

But so far, like the earth under pavement, only pieces of me have found cracks in the hard, grey layering.

Glimpses of my truth are peeking out in clusters of fighting, bright green blades of pure, earthly grass. More and more everyday, every season.

Unlike me, the grass did not weep when the hot asphalt was poured over it.

Nor did the grass seeds underneath become stricken with despair over the defeat of the last blades that were covered.

No.

They gracefully bowed down to the destruction.

And the seeds continue to be dormant, patient until the pavement cracks and bestows the required elements for growth: the right amount of water, the right amount of air, and the right about of sunshine. No emotional bullshit attached.

My own dormant character aspects work in the same way (albeit, they had/have their fair share of emotional bullshit attached!). They’re waiting for the proper elements to line up, to aid in my growth. My required elements may not be as simplistic as water, air and sunshine. Though, maybe symbolically they are.

Maybe my three elements are: the right amount of truth, the right about of forgiveness, and the right amount of love. Perhaps when those three elements combine in areas of my psyche, is when growth is stimulated and potential is reached.

My road differs from the paved road in another way.

I am the one who controls whether or not city workers come to add more layers, covering up my protruding grass. Unlike real roads, I have the conscious ability to not let anyone, city worker or not, destroy my freshly grown greeneries—the freedoms I worked so hard to bring to the open air. I have the conscious choice to stop asphalt workers dead in their tracks: DO NOT ADD ANOTHER LAYER— OPEN FIELD IN PROGRESS!

I have evolved enough to know that it is, ultimately, my choice to become buried and destroyed.

Realizing I have choice and control over my road, my spirit, my potential, is in itself a cluster of grass protruding from my road, my path. Revealing another simple yet profound truth that has taken years to escape through the cracks.

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About the Author:

 Tammy M. Carew is currently an A.D.D writer (meaning: she writes in random bursts of creativity, because she can’t sit still long enough to finish one of the dozen or-so books she has started. But will someday. Just watch!) Which is why her blog, overzealousblog.blogspot.com, is such a frikin’ mess— but is full of (self-proclaimed) wisdom, humor, experience, and most of all, love. She has studied yoga philosophy and enlightenment for the past year and is starting her Yoga Teacher training in September 2011. And she absolutely loves elephant journal for all its delicious people and wisdom.