As Spring Blooms...

It's a beautiful morning here.

I almost cried when I stepped out of my car to head into the office this morning. In spite of a major interstate running straight through the landscape, there is a breathtaking view of the Boulder Flat Irons (foothills) from my office and this morning everything seemed so awake and brilliant, it felt newly washed.

The grass is greener than I've seen in years, all things great and small are blooming into life and the smells are marvelous.

I live for Spring, it is when I feel most alive, most creative, most motivated. I often fear the changes in season as this transition has historically equated with emotional upheavals, even with all that, it is hard to ignore how captivating Spring in Colorado is. I could get lost in it. I find myself, throughout the work day, day-dreaming and wanting badly to be outside and out of this caged environment made up of cube walls and fluorescence. In here it is listless and void of life; out there is where I need to be.

~ sigh ~

Amidst all this beauty Mother Nature is bestowing upon us, my family and I have settled into a pattern of endless work days, attending Max's various events and attempting to get him there on time, more work in our home, and occasionally stealing a few moments to be in love with it all. Sometimes it feels like too much and sometimes it doesn't. I trust in the lessons I am learning at the moment, one of which is that being a big girl in life comes with a price, perhaps one I've hid from for many years. Maybe I've been lazy, or indifferent to the idea of it all, or my mind was elsewhere, or I've simply been just trying to stay afloat and do this "growing up" thing in the process, which is most likely the case.

Nurturing and loving a child, honoring the commitments I've made to the man I love, being a loyal and available friend, living consciously of the world and of self, working diligently for my employer, being a woman in a culture that still seems so divided on whether to hate us or love us; etc., etc., etc., There are days when this is all really hard work and I find myself longing for some unknown life of naps, pampering and reckless abandon to all responsibilities except that of myself. Then on most other days, it doesn't feel like work at all and by the grace of some powers that be, I've been afforded the luxury of love and so much opportunity, I can barely stand it. It is difficult to explain why I am so grateful for every moment of joy, why it overcomes me.

It's hard to relay to others where I've been. That place still lives within me somewhere, it is painful and harsh and deeply solitary. I realize now that it is hard for others to understand because the woman I am now, is not the child I was then. Save for a few individuals whom I've known since childhood, the majority in my life now have no tangible means in which to measure my growth or why it is that I am so overcome by all that I find myself surrounded with....and really, they needn't know much of any of it anyway. Because it does not matter. It does not matter to them, the embarrassments and indignities of my youth; the lengths in which I went to escape being yet another statistic, only to become one anyway in another manner; the struggle to find myself after all those years of control; the fight to care for someone else when I could barely care for myself; the years I spent being darkly introspective and healing from things I could not control. Every mistake, every scraped knee and bruised ego, none of this matters. It doesn't matter because all that falling down is part of what is helping me stand tall today. I somehow came across others in my life who can appreciate this rather than chastise or condemn me for a past that was not all my own.

I sometimes feel I am holding some hideous secret, if people knew this or that about me, then I'd be cast aside and deemed unworthy of their love. And isn't that worst thing really? To be unworthy or unloved. There was a time when I thought so. It has taken me 13 years to accept that some of my experiences were a direct result of my own personal choice, but there was so much that I do not have to feel guilty about, it wasn't my fault and I do not have to take responsibility for the actions of others. I do not need to live my life with the guilt and shame that was forced unto me by others and repeat it through eternity. But alas, forgiveness can be a tricky thing and that is what I'm really saying here is it not? That I must forgive those who have trespassed upon me, or must I forgive myself? For being a child, or fragile, or submissive, or afraid, or naive. I forgive me.

This is quite a tangent isn't it. I hadn't intended to go this route, but I've been thinking allot lately on the turn of events in the past 2 years or so and knowing that it must be another time of great change for me, another peak in the cycle. I've also been thinking about the person I've been and the person I am now and how are they different? How are they the same?

Ah, no coincidence that I might be having this thought process in the midst of Spring, a time for growth and renewal. I doubt it's coincidental really, makes perfect sense to me.

And with that my lovelies, I bid you a fair fond well and until next time, much love and hope you are all enjoying Spring wherever you may be.
l-s