By Maryn Ascher
It’s always been interesting to me how we mature through life. Increasing our awareness, reassessing friendships, emerging from our cocoons as uniquely beautiful butterflies.
In the spring, my hometown is filled with mesmerizing monarch butterflies. I recall many days spent playing in my backyard, the occasional monarch gliding through the wind, floating near my curious, youthful eyes.Â
Monarch butterflies typically live alone. They don’t worry about the consequences of their actions or which butterflies should be kept in their lives.Â
Meanwhile, I shed my cocoon, wondering why few of my fellow caterpillars follow suit.
While we were all caterpillars together, and perhaps we spun our cocoons together, we do not all emerge from them at the same time, in the same way. And that’s okay… or that’s what I tell myself.Â
Sometimes, we may burst from our cocoons as one, fluttering around each other in the breeze as a moment of celebration. Maybe we will fly together as a swarm, a clan. Yet maybe one day some of us will want to float away. Do you ever really see two butterflies together?
As I fly through my third year of college, twenty years of trials and tribulations behind me, I’ve begun to realize which kinds of people I want to keep in my life. The thought that the friends you spent your formative years with, who saw you at your worst, may not be right for you anymore is certainly daunting. But sometimes, you can’t wait for a friend’s cocoon to be spun when you are already bursting out of yours. That’s the beauty of it all: it is the art of maturation.
I wonder if monarch butterflies ever get lonely.
Maryn Ascher (she/her) ‘26 is a junior studying forensic science and anthropology. She is involved in many orgs on campus including Delta Phi Epsilon, First Year Players, and Jerk Magazine. She has been writing creative pieces for as long as she can remember and is excited for the Honors community to see her work about her personal experiences!
