Overgrown

It’s generally not my idea to wait until later in the day to write, but, as with this last week, I’m finding myself further and further behind on the “we need to get this done” pieces of my life and less on top of the realities before me. As such, these joyful moments of respite, writing to you all, get pushed further down the stack of things to accomplish. Such is life, I’m afraid.

In a way, life is resembling this pipe right about now. I’m feeling a bit surrounded, swamped with the detritus of everything happening around me, those siren calls of distraction to the meaningless and banal, the wonderment about what the future holds, and the incessant ache of patience. It’s all tugging at my head and heart, and in many different ways, I can feel a bit of myself getting lost in the process.

These are the moments where you begin (if you haven’t already) to set your affairs in order. No, I don’t mean in an ultimately fatalistic “tomorrow might be the day I die” kind of way, but in the sense of ordering the priorities of your life: the inputs, outputs, and throughputs that compose your story. After all, we’re only human and can only handle so much going on at any single point.

With spring, we have the emergence of new life, the buds buried below the darkened soil, the trees shaking off the dead leaves of slumber, and we’re back to growth and longer, languid days. It’s a halcyon time, prone to neither being too cold nor hot and rewards us with beauty in petals and bough. It’s also a time of renewal, a shaking off of our old skins for the future. Like I said, it’s time to get your affairs in order.

I know I’ve gotten bogged down with responsibilities and theories; the questions of “what’s next?” have gone straight to the chains that have magically appeared around me, holding me in stasis while I wait for the inevitable release. Either way, I’ll be free to complete a long overdue redemption story or trundle on with what it currently is. Either way, my story will continue, though feelings would have me believe that one way is much, much, much better than the other.

The noise of work and my personal life have indeed entangled themselves together. On the one hand, I’m pacing around a bit more, wondering what the next event will be, the following message, the next appointment, seeing a surprise one-on-one meeting appear in my calendar and feeling my gut tighten. On the other hand, I’m delayed from seeing Emma because of both good and bad circumstances: good in that they represent momentum forward for my future, bad in that they keep me from her for a few more days. Patience is ever a tool used by the gods to keep us humble and wanting.

That being said, I recognise the blessings in waiting. I acknowledge that while I may be surrounded by the weeds and noise of a world whistling and growing, I am fit for the purpose I was created for, ready and willing to take on the challenges offered despite how I may feel in the moment.

I hope you, too, on this almost-spring Monday, are ready to shake off the old and stale, embrace the new growth and life in your hearts, and continue to push forward with purpose and dignity. After all, you were created and sustained for a purpose, whether you realise it or not.

May it ever be so.