Journey Through The Seasons

Wow, January is already half way over. Where in the world did November and December go… let alone the last sixteen days of January?!?

I sit in the odd silence of my house tonight. My body exhausted, my mind weary. This holiday season has been long, it’s taken it’s toll on me, and I’m not quite sure what to even think as I consider the “settling in” season that lies before me during the looming wait still before me until spring.

Oddly, part of me wonders if spring might actually arrive faster than I’m wanting this year. Don’t get me wrong, I will never turn down warmer temps and ticking off days and weeks on our unofficial “return to the lake” countdown… But honestly, I feel like I haven’t had time to catch my breath, time to catch up, time to slow down yet this winter. This is scrapbook season, this is Sunday nap season, this is lazy weekends and hot soup season.

Well, I feel like I’ve hardly had time to scrapbook, I’ve hardly been home for a lazy weekend, I’ve taken one Sunday nap (ok, maybe two) and I haven’t even made one batch of any kind of soup yet. I have a serious pile of photos I am dying to get my hands on and beautify with paper and scissors and oooh’s and ahhhh's of memories long past.

I am also however longing to get back to that rock on the beach to watch the magic of the sunsets at the lake, back to the community of friends, back to the nature and touch of God, back to the decks and docks and breezes in the branches. I’m longing to get back out on the deserted dark road and run my miles and miles of half marathon training miles, watching the sun rise in the east as the miles slowly tick by.

It’s an odd tug of war between that which is behind me and that which is before me, all while I’m spinning nearly out of control at the moment right now within my hand, laced with its stress and emotions and an overbooked, overrated schedule. Something I swore I would not allow to have happen again.

I’ve worked so hard to lower the stress, lower the commitments, lower the expectations. And yet here I am, losing myself slowly in it all once again… slipping carelessly into another season of hard and messy and hurt, as I ache and remember moments and memories of my life and our loss three years ago. I’ve allowed work to stress me and my family to not bless me. I’ve allowed satan to whisper his shallow and hollow sweet nothings yet again in my ear, convincing me of my lack and my weakness.

Fall arrived, school started, and I went from lake season to final half marathon training season. I ran my race and I came home to turn back around to bring home a puppy we had hoped to adopt, but didn’t… We continued bumping along an ever rockier road with a nine-year-old dealing with oppositional defiance issues, and we would soon find ourselves finally jetting off on a surprise marathon trip to Disney for a week over Thanksgiving, that we’d planned and kept a secret for over a year. As we drove home late into the evening from the airport, we were given a final opportunity to still adopt a puppy that was sick, which we actually did. We arrived home with dirty laundry, four thousand photos to process, and welcomed home a sick two pound little puppy to train and love.

I maybe blinked twice and then headed straight into Christmas shopping and planning and food prep and cupcake orders. The decorations went up without any help, and the gifts magically bought and wrapped themselves, just in time to joyfully arrive at all the parties.

And here I am, on a below zero night in the middle of January. My Christmas tree is still up in the corner, the decorations all off and it’s not plugged in. Part of a strand of lights went out right before Christmas, and I keep telling myself if I put it away now, I will just regret it next November when I haul it back up… but you and I both know I’m not ever going to get around to changing out those lights any more this year, so why am I just letting it sit there dark and forlorn in the corner, taunting me by all I have yet to do and all I am failing to accomplish and complete?!?

February and Valentine’s Day are looming, with my birthday close at their heels. Oh I just dread February and March, probably even more so than I dread the holidays and January. Tears already sting at my eyes as I think about the sickness, and the pain, and the heartache all attached to these days that will soon be once again arriving.

I’m not really grieving anymore, and yet I am. I’m not really sad any more, and yet I am. I’m not really angry any more, and yet I am. I’m not really lost and alone any more, and yet I am. I’m not the same person I was back then, and yet I am.

I am, but I’m not. I can, but I can’t. I could, but I won’t.

I would, but I can’t.  I should, but I don’t. 

The words… they escape me. The memories… they smother me.

The emotions… they overtake me.

I don’t want any of this, I really don’t. I’m not looking for pity or piety. I’m not looking for hand outs or hand-me-downs.

I’m looking for rest, for healing, for reprieve, for silence.
I’m looking for me. And I feel I’ve been looking for me for my whole life, convinced I just may never find her.

And yet, perhaps I’m not supposed to. Perhaps that is the secret, the key, the magic of it all. It’s not in the finding of oneself that finally reveals all the answers… it’s perhaps merely in the looking and longing and plowing through all this vast lostness that actually is the holder of all the mere and mighty answers to the unknowns.

Perhaps there is no answers, no final destinations to reach while still on earth.
Perhaps there is merely only the journey through the ups and the downs... through the joys and the sorrows... through the the slow and through the speedy...

Simply the journey through the seasons…

{ Previous Blog Post "Goodwill Treasures She Pondered In Her Heart" HERE }