April 5, 2021

Metamorphosis

By Bebe Deen

In grade school, I learned about the magnificent transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly, also known as metamorphosis. The transformation unfolds like this: the egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, emerging adult, and finally, a butterfly. I soon realized that humans go through a similar evolution, or metamorphosis of our own. We start out as eggs just as butterflies do. As babies, we are impressionable and do not yet comprehend the world we live in– if we ever do at all. As we grow up, we learn the basis of life and learn dependency on our families. The caterpillar phase parallels adolescence as we continue to grow physically and emotionally. We experience some of the greatest joys along with the lowest lows at this time: the first heartbreak, family feuds, and the stresses and anxieties of maturity. At times, your future seems so uncertain and you begin to miss being in the initial years of the caterpillar phase. By the end of this cycle, as every author insinuates in coming of age stories, innocence is entirely diminished.  

Currently, I am in my chrysalis phase, what I refer to as the intermittent phase between childhood and adulthood. My college cocoon protects me as I reform into an adult. All of my life experiences are being rearranged and reprocessed in order to prepare myself for adulthood. The stresses of life become more pressing and although it may feel as if the universe is collapsing at times, these are the best years of my life. I have learned a lot since the egg phase, however I require much more growth to become my complete butterfly. While I miss my caterpillar days– the days when my parents did the worrying for me– I am becoming independent now. I am not only learning to take care of myself, but also beginning to figure my passions and motivations in life. Consequently, this phase has been the most important because I am learning to live for myself rather than others. No matter the miles between me and my family, they will always be there for me, and that distance is only as far I make it out to be.

The emerging adult phase begins after college graduation and during one’s first job. You are fully independent at this point of life, but still adjusting to being a butterfly. You are applying the skills learned in school to real life, but the real learning that has been put on hold for 22 years is learning about yourself. Our parents taught us how to feel and process emotions and school taught us math, science, english, and social studies; we are taught what others want us to learn. However, in the emerging adult phase, we learn how to unapologetically be ourselves by learning our personal wants and needs. Although there will be nights when we want to revert back to the caterpillar phase, we have learned in the chrysalis phase that the ones we truly love are only one phone call away. 

We repeat the cycle and start our own family in the butterfly phase. We share how our bad experiences have amounted to our maturity and how we have learned to love ourselves in all the chaos. With the lessons we have learned by becoming butterflies ourselves, we lay our own eggs and nurture them. Life translates to cycles: ending one and beginning another. At the end of the day, you can’t take your money with you to your deathbed, but rather the legacy that comes from the impact you leave on others. And this legacy is shaped by your experiences, how you overcame them, how you grew from them, and ultimately, how you became a butterfly.

Edited By Bella Watchi