What The Weather Brings
I’m not new at this. This managing of whatever the weather brings. Sometimes I need to be reminded of this. When the calm before the storm can’t be trusted and the calm after the storm is filled with so much need.
The old default is panic: Assume I’m not powerful. These are paths in my brain that have worn deep grooves. Those grooves now reside in my forehead. I can count them. They’re here to stay like ridges in the bark of an older tree.
I am older now, too, and I’ve had plenty of years to experience all manner of weather. I have struggled for most of those years to find my footing, the power of will that comes from deep within. I have to reach down deep, because the pain is there hovering above and below the surface of my skin, and extending all the way into my bones. It’s like a maze where I take another turn in anticipation of finding my way out, but each new corner reveals that I am going to be in it for much longer.
Acceptance and fight are strange complementary forces in my life. On the one hand, I have learned much about letting go, living into the moments one at a time and finding joy or hope where I can, on the other hand staring hard into the eyes of affliction and depression and letting them know they cannot have me today- they cannot take my dreams, my peace; these time thieves must face a reckoning.
I want to enter the next decade of my life with my feet so close to the earth I can feel my roots extending, my branches expanding. I want to be like those beautiful, tall trees behind my house that have withstood high winds, driving rain, bitter cold and blazing heat. If I pass through the fires I want to remember how I am capable of nourishing the ground and growing more life from the ashes of unrealized dreams.
I’m not new at this. And I am not “not powerful.” I will press onward to new paths where I see what I am capable of, how strength is built over long stretches of time and perseverence, and where I am empowered to demonstrate the possibility of resilience and the beauty of unhurried growth.