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How Leaving My Job Because of Chronic Illness Is Like Living in a Chrysalis
While in a chrysalis, a caterpillar undergoes a magnificent physical metamorphosis. Many of us can conceptualize and recognize a caterpillar and a butterfly, but the physical and chemical changes that occur while the caterpillar is in this suspended, stationary state are far less glamorous and identifiable. The tissues of the caterpillar are dissolved, digested, metabolized, absorbed, and rearranged into the new form of a butterfly. You cannot rush this process or force an early emergence, for if you do, the organism will not be able to survive. The work continues once the metamorphosis is complete and the butterfly emerges; the butterfly has to pump fluid through its body to inflate its wings before taking flight. I welcome you inside my dark, chaotic chrysalis. I do not know what I will look like or feel like or where I will be able to go once I emerge, but I know I’m living in a time of transformation.