A breath of spring

So here we are, in the first week of spring. Real spring, according to the calendar, though weather across the country may disagree.
Here in Tennessee, spring arrived uncharacteristically late. Two weeks ago there was ice and snow everywhere. Over the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day, spring magically arrived overnight, with flowers poking up in the front garden and trees putting on new buds. I’ve never been a fan of winter, so I was really ready for spring to arrive.

It feels like I’ve been waiting for spring for a long time. Just like there are seasons in the world around us, there are seasons in life, and it seems as if I’ve been trapped in winter for ages. There’s a breath of spring now and then, a hint of something green and glorious yet to come, but I never reach it. I’m here, buried beneath a blanket of snow, hibernating, waiting to grow.

This winter has been a long winter, and when you share your personal space with a very clingy, very demanding, very short person 24/7, nothing sounds better than a big open field of flowers where you both can have some space. But life with a toddler at home is a season, like any other. It’s a winter, waiting for growth. It will pass. Just like when you’re in the middle of winter, you know spring will come. Winter will pass.

Trying to reach goals often feels like waiting for winter to end. There’s hard work and positive thinking to keep you moving, but eventually everyone hits a point where all you can do is wait.
So you wait.
Wait for a call, an email, a letter.
Waiting for a break.

Lives roll on like a cycle of seasons. Sometimes autumn isn’t full of pumpkin spice and bright colors. Sometimes your winters are dark and cold and lonely. Sometimes these seasons are painfully long. But neither is a season of death or gloom, just a period of rest, a period for self-improvement and patience. A time for development. For learning. For work. Spring comes when efforts reach fruition and begin to grow.

I’m still waiting for my spring. Waiting for my ship to come in. But looking out at the new growth that heralds the early phases of spring, I know I’ll get there eventually, and all the work I’ve rolled up into a bulb will push stalks through the earth and blossom.

Eventually.

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