Biology Notes

     So today in Biology I learned that insects have a hard outer shell called an exoskeleton; a suit of armor of a set size that they grow to fill completely and then stop growing (I think...but I was actually scribbling this post on my notes during class so I can't be sure). That's why you don't see obese bugs running around - they have a limit. They can only get so big.
     I've felt a lot like an insect lately. I've been running around frantically trying to fill myself up. Not just with food, but also faith, love, hope, and the ability to help others. I took the persona I've been creating for four strong years, the emotionally apathetic, academically over-productive, chronically high-strung, stressed out timid self, and tried to transform her into an icon of love, a beacon of faith and hope and morality and strength, a landing site for hurting souls. And I tried to do it almost literally overnight.
     Quite obviously, I hit a point at which I realized I wasn't the awesome saint-like influence that I wanted to be, and I became frustrated. I was putting so much energy into myself but I wasn't getting any bigger. I'd filled the shell I'd built for myself years ago, and there was nowhere for any new substance to go.
     The thing about insects, though, is that although each stage of their lives involves a certain set size they don't stay in that stage of life forever. Insects (because of pathways and hormones and factors that I actually did write down at this point) molt. They shed the shell they've been inhabiting in favor of a new, slightly larger one that allows for more growth. And slowly, stage by stage, they grow into the adult they're meant to be. Not all at once. In stages. Like so:

     My life span is, thankfully, much longer than that of an insect, so maybe that means my growth stages are longer too. And maybe, just maybe, I'm finally reaching the end of one. Maybe I'm getting a chance now to build again, to grow again, to make changes.
     Maybe I'm molting.