Folding

I was a blank page once - simple, neat, full of potential, but I didn't stay that way for long.

For the next several years, I was folded. They were gentle folds - careful, intentional. I was different now. Those folds changed me. I had more depth. I was more interesting. But I was still sleek and clean, and still very full of potential.

Yet the folding didn't stop. Some folds were creased again and again until the edges started to crinkle. Some folds were flattened and refolded with an ever so slightly different angle. Some folds were still very careful and intentional, while others seemed pointless - undone so quickly there seemed to be no purpose to them at all.

I felt smaller and more cramped, forced into this new shape that I didn't recognize. I wanted to be something - something beautiful, something impressive - but could it truly be worth all of this?

The folds became rougher - forced and frustrated. My edges were beginning to tear, and I began to fear I would never amount to anything more than a crumpled mess tossed aside and forgotten. Who would want something ripped and torn? How could something so broken become anything worth making?

Still, the folds didn't stop. But they were more careful now. There was a shape - a shape I almost recognized. Each deliberate fold brought with it a new layer, a new depth to be explored. Could it be? Could these countless, endless folds still do their work? Could this old, beat-up piece of paper become something beautiful?

One last gentle fold and it was done. Gone was the simple, blank page that I once was. I could never be that way again, but I wouldn't want to be. Certainly, a new, clean sheet of paper has its own beauty, but without each fold, each crease, each change, that blank, clean sheet can never fulfill its potential as I have. I couldn't see where I was going. I didn't know what I would become, and though many changes were difficult - some seemed pointless, and some were painful - without each one of them, I never could have become the beautiful and impressive piece of origami that I am today.