In the bloom of spring, life doesn't stay stuck forever
Life breathes back in—and with it changes, decisions, and managing multiple streams of income.
I’ve long expressed my disdain for March. The month that can be a bitch and turn on you like that frenemy you keep at arm’s length because they can be so ruthlessly quick in its betrayal. I keep moving winter coats from closet to closet like a fool in my haste to say goodbye to the cold and all its layers of wool and down feathers, but March has its own ideas. It always does.
We may have turned a corner, however. And I’m not even referring to the weather which, in typical March fashion, has been a whiplash of sun and warmth one day and plunging temperatures the next. We are in the cold dip right now. The flowering buds hang on bravely, tightly wound to protect its coil of inner petals from all of March’s weather changes, but they always bloom in nature’s engineered dance to usher us into the season of spring.
I feel life breathing back in and there’s been an energy shift the last two weeks. Are you feeling it too? It might just be the extra light at the end of the day. When we first changed our clocks it had me cursing at the disorientation that daylight savings left behind even though it’s only an hour difference. Now, I gleefully declare at 7 p.m., “I love daylight savings!!!” as I see the glow of light still holding on. Just a few weeks ago, it would have been pitch dark after dinner.
The winter of waiting ends
This winter was the winter of waiting and a study in patience, and for that reason it felt long. I don’t do well in periods of the unknown. My pragmatic side craves concrete decisions and facts, so much so that I’ll sometimes preemptively make decisions to get ahead of uncertainty and too much speculation. I am the master of spinning unrealized and imagined scenarios in my head. I don’t know if this is stupid or wise. Maybe neither. When you aren’t in control—and much of life is beyond our control—it can be humbling for type A control freaks such as myself. Learning how to sit with all that discomfort still doesn’t make it comfortable.
In the moments where I have felt myself start to spiral from so much uncertainty, I take a cue from my cat. In his most contemplative state, I’ve watched him sit for hours in contentment just staring off into space in that loafy pose that cats do, where all their limbs disappear as they tuck themselves in. Never mind what goes on in that adorable pea-sized brain of his. His ability to zen out is the aspirational state of bliss that I strive for. And then, because cats are always on alert and masters of living in the moment, he spots something in the distance and zooms off to investigate.
