In the west part of the Central Valley of Costa Rica, the rain was persistent all weekend. Even this morning, I look out to the mountains lining the south ridge and the clouds look as though they are just regrouping for more. Already I can smell the workings of mold gathering in my closet. My front door is bloated and I have to kick it shut.

Trees, perhaps rotten on the inside, topple over, and branches, swollen with water, drop to the ground. I’ve been canoing in deep rain forests and heard the sound of falling branches cracking and dropping as our group paddled under hanging green vines and over tree trunks that sometimes blocked our way.

La sabana park was full of fallen branches and trees that broke or tipped over due to the weight of the water. It seems nature is shedding the old and allowing the new a bit of space to grow. In the rain forests, those branches become food for insects and fertilize the ground. It’s a little harder to let these grand things just rot right in the middle of a major park. Hopefully no one was standing in the way of the branch as it let loose it’s grip and hit the ground.

As I wade through divorce, and single parenting, and “life,” I realize I’ve got these branches hanging off of me that are heavy, old, and swollen with an infectious ego that wants to burden me and constantly remind me how stupid, ugly, fat, skinny, smart, sexy, silly, cold, incredible, miserable, and on and on I am. How did all these labels come to hang off me in the first place? As I ran through la sabana, I hopped over the logs and even tripped over a few, remembering that I am not the labels that me or anyone else calls me. It’s just too much weight to carry. A drizzle started as I finished my run. Maybe the next time someone asks me what I do or who I am, I can just say I’m a tree. It’s much simpler, plus so much more accurate.