Two Lonely Trees.

My brain is a young little tree, wanting to grow faster and faster and faster! Always putting out new buds, growing new branches, trying to add an entire new branch and a hundred flowers every day. When it’s windy or raining, all my new blossoms and twigs are knocked to the ground. The baby tree looks around and says “oh well, that hurt but it’s not going to stop me. Time to grow more! And more! And never stop!”

But my emotions are an old tree, a scarred, twisted, misshapen, wizened stump. The old tree has weathered countless storms, been hit by lightening, dealt with a rope swing and a tree fort. It’s handled pesticides and dry summers and cold winters. My emotion tree puts out a few branches and buds each year, but it saves it’s energy. It’s a deliberate approach. Why rush when half the work will come undone anyway? Why bloom a million flowers when half will wither and die in the heat?

My poor old emotion tree looks at the brain tree and smiles wisely- that young thing will learn eventually. There’s no rush- the sun isn’t going anywhere. The rain will show up at some point. Roots are more important than branches. One sturdy branch is worth five twigs that can’t survive a windstorm.

Sure, the brain tree learns quickly- because it makes more mistakes. The emotion tree has already learned plenty of lessons- the scars of those mistakes are written all over its bark.

The funny thing is, the brain tree is actually a part of the emotion tree. What started as a full tree was split in half, a sliver of a branch dropping to the ground and growing its own roots- all while still connected by a tendril of bark.

The brain tree first started around the age of five, when I began to understand the world around me. The emotion tree started slowing down around then- especially after that first huge scar, that first bolt of lightning or chop of the axe. That first setback took years to overcome. My bark grew thicker, and I didn’t have any new branches for years.

My emotion tree is a slow and steady growth, absorbing wounds and making them into a beautiful patchwork of bark, protecting my most tender parts.

My brain tree is a sprint of new growth, never stopping to notice the losses, only focused on the future.

Such a pain for them both to be so intertwined. One day they will be the same height, the brain tree beginning to slow as it starts catching up. The two trees will eventually grow close enough to become one again, as they were always meant to be.

I’m sad about that first devastating hatchet blow, that first disastrous injury that split my brain off from my emotions. The technical term is dissociation- often a result of childhood trauma. What would my full tree look like if it had never split? How strong would I be if I had grown more before that first injury, if I’d already gained a thick bark before someone came and tried to chop me down?

How patient my brain would be, how understanding my emotions would be- because they would have each other.

But my poor childhood self was split like a piece of kindling, and it’s still working to grow back together. It’s hard to know which is more compassionate- the brain tree because it understands what occurred, or the emotion tree because it feels the impact…

Which one needs the other the most? Maybe they both do, equally.

One day my stunted childhood self will grow up and move on, instead of being frozen in the past. One day my two lonely trees will be one, but it will take a lot of growth to get there.

I’m just a silly old hermit in the woods, gently binding them back together with twine. My gorgeous, twisted little tree, beautiful in its distress, in its continual resurgence from injury. What a resilient little darling, never giving up.

I can’t wait to see how formidable it grows.