I relate to butterflies more than most people would guess. Not because they’re beautiful or admired — but because of what they had to go through just to become something different.
For a long time, I was a caterpillar. Crawling through life, taking what I needed to survive — no direction, no transformation, just instinct. And like a caterpillar, I was hungry for everything. Hungry for escape. Hungry for numbness. Hungry for something to quiet the pain. That’s what addiction looked like for me — always consuming, never contributing.
I didn’t know how to give. I only knew how to take — from people who loved me, from chances I didn’t see, from myself. I was alive, but not living. Just surviving.
And then prison happened. And as strange as it sounds, that’s when the cocoon began.
Most people think prison is the end of the story. But for me, it became the beginning of a new one. In there, I wasn’t distracted by the outside noise. I had no choice but to sit with myself — with my thoughts, my regrets, my decisions.
That cocoon wasn’t soft. It was hard. It was made of concrete, metal doors, time, guilt, and pain. But inside that space, something started to shift. I read. I prayed. I asked questions I had avoided for years. I chose to grow.
Because I didn’t want to come out of that place the same person I was going in. I wasn’t trying to get out — I was trying to get right.
And when I finally stepped out of that time in my life, I wasn’t crawling anymore. I wasn’t hungry for destruction. I was hungry for purpose.
That’s why I call myself a butterfly now. Not because I’m perfect — but because I changed.
Butterflies give life. They pollinate. They fly. They bring beauty into broken places. And they remind people that transformation is real — that you don’t have to stay what you were.
That’s what I try to do now:
🌱 Be a light.
🧱 Rebuild.
🦋 Give life back where I once drained it.
So if you're still crawling… If you're still stuck in the hunger or hiding in your own cocoon — don’t give up.
Transformation takes time. And sometimes, it takes stillness.
But when it happens,
you won’t be crawling anymore. You’ll be flying.
#RealOnesRebuild
#HoldenStrong
#ButterflyEffect