Spring 2019.
“Trust the timing of your life”. I had written this as a note to myself in the spring of 2018, feeling trapped in the throes of uncertainty. A little more than a year later, I dance between knowing I have learnt the lesson, and feeling as if I have a long way to go.
Changing my outlook (thus, my life and my reality) for the better has has not been without its challenges. J keeps me in check and reminds me how bright life is; sometimes I am resistant and sometimes it causes conflict. Life can be lighter and less heavy, if I allow myself to be vulnerable enough to let joy in; to be confident in what I know to be true about me; to rest comfortably with myself in a way that feels like hands gently cupped around my soul, so that I can better love myself and therefore, others. I catch glimpses of what this feels like for me more and more often. There are longer gaps between moments where I allow fear, anxiety and all that is not me to overstay their welcome.
For every bit as brave as I have ever been, I have also been equally afraid—afraid to trust that someone could love my flaws forever; afraid to trust that things have a way of working themselves out. I have only just learnt the true extent of some of my deepest flaws, and how much of my day-to-day happiness is ruled by the things that I fear. I unlearn step-by-step; sometimes I remember, and sometimes I forget.
Spring in the Rockies has been rainier than ever before. It’s rained more in the last two months than it has in the last two-and-a-half years I have been here. It feels as if we have waited forever for summer to truly begin, for rain in the valley means more snow on the mountains, and grey, low-lying cloud blocks the sun from warming up the day. Still, we go outside, making the most of it, hoping that all this rain keeps the wildfires at bay. Everything in the valley is lush & green, and waterfalls flow madly over cliffs, filling up our streams and creeks. I love observing how the transitions in spring often run in direct parallel to the transitions in life—usually most change has happened around this time.
The transient energy of the mountains is strong. It’s no longer surprising, but it can be tiring. Everything and everyone is constantly changing and evolving, leaving and returning; perhaps, for where I am in my own growth, this truly is the best place for me to have ended up. The ever-flowing, ever-changing nature of this place teaches me to hold life softly; softly, not clinging, not grasping, not limiting myself to any one path or idea.
As I begin to feel far more fulfilled in my day-to-day, I move away from wanting to share online. Life is for living, and I no longer care for keeping up an online presence that can often take me away from the present. Of all the lessons I am learning, I am seeing how, in the past, I have spent far too much time living in my head and not enough time in the beautiful moment I am in. My head likes to take me to the past (already been; unchangeable) and fills me with sorrow, and other times it takes me to the future (unknown, and unpredictable) and fills me with fear over all the things that may or may not happen. These are imagined places; they do not exist other than in my head or in my memory. If fear is all that fills my cup, what room is there for anything else?
