Perhaps I have never been more “ready” for spring than I am this winter. I had to stop and check myself and make sure that I don’t say this every year at this time, but no, I think this year…. some how, I am more antsy, more impatient, more ready to go out and blow the dust off these old bones of mine.
I am generally a four-seasons kind of girl.. I love the snow… and appreciate the cold… it is the unrelenting grey days that just become to much.. even my huge doses of vitamin D3 don’t seem to be keeping up this year.
Maybe the fact that we are living in a seemingly never ending construction zone that is adding to the out of control need to run…. but, what ever it is, everything in me seems to be screaming,
IS IT SPRING YET?
It isn’t just the outward symptoms that have me hoping and praying for newness.. there is also something deep down in my soul that only the warmth of the sun can seem to speak too… that uneasiness of self…. that ability my heart and head have to speed out of control when winter becomes to long.
Usually winter months are spent writing… endless hours at the computer with characters that I love, stories that need to find their way out of my head and from underneath my skin. Usually winter is a time that I feel somewhat compelled to hunker down with my coffee mug and pen…but I haven’t needed too as much this year, perhaps since I have learned to allow myself downtime all year around.
I love each of the seasons…. I love the hurry, the fun, the noise of laughter that summer brings. I love the self reflections and falling leaves of Fall…. The first snow of winter makes me almost gitty….. yet, this year. My heart screams for Spring. I long for a valley full of white and pink blossoms dotting all the greenness of the fields, the singing of the birds, and flowers poking out from under the black winter soil. I am ready to plant seeds of new harvest, and time with my pony that is not interrupted by cold weather and early nights.
I cannot wait for the first cocoon – The first butterfly who is brave enough to shed it’s protective coating and take on the next adventure of life. Maybe that is what it is for me this year…. Maybe it is that, there is just so much of this past year that needs to be shed off. Loss of loved ones that I cannot seem to heal from. A life long friendship that I can never quit get right. A list of regrets that I cannot MAKE right. A career that runs to hot and cold for someone of my……. disposition.
All things that I have encased myself in as a protective coating. Things I couldn’t have imagined ever not being a part of me… Yet, here I am still holding them all so tightly, unsure of who I would be without them….yet knowing, that by letting them truly go, they will be what they will be, and it will be okay. It is scary to let go…. yet, holding on means holding back.
I used to think that the healing process had a beginning and an end. That it was an absolute. You do this.. and wala…..but, it isn’t so for me. It is more like an onion….. with each layer I pull back, I can see progress.. but it make take a layer or two to get to the good stuff. And, that usually means being willing to tear it all back and get rid of the outer coating.
Life is a process. I look back at mine even 4 years ago and the strides I have made to live the life I want to live are huge. The pile of things ( and people) that I have let go of is mountainous… I laugh more. I forgive faster. I judge less. I trust more. I live louder. I love more fearlessly. I am more adventurous. I listen more and talk less. I let go more freely…. and I feel less of a need to be loved by all…. just more completely by some. I let love in. I have learned to apologize less for who I am, and to be okay with those who walk away and celebrate those who are strong enough to stay. I say NO way more often, and am so much the happier for it. I feel less the need to impress, and am more willing to be impressed.
Like the vineyards around me, I have been through a season of pruning. Brutal as it has felt at times – I think it is the thing that makes my heart long for Spring. I am ready to sprout the newness I feel welling up in me – – – My restlessness perhaps is the inner battle of holding back the buds of new growth until the last mourning of winter has come and gone.
If that is true, it is no surprise that I feel my heart pleading; Please, oh please, Bring on Spring!
A Cowgirl Called 