A Fresh Season of Life

Welcome to my new season...

Unlike agricultural seasons, life seasons are seldom regulated by time, the movement of moon, stars and earth's rotation around the sun, or a natural instinct that God built into a creature who might breed, fatten up on feed to migrate or hibernate.  For humans a life season can last a few weeks or a few years, a month or a decade or more.  Some seasons are harsh.  Some are full of accomplishment and joy.  

Let me tell you about myself.  I am a woman who has lived for a bit more than six decades. I rather like the phrase, "a woman of a certain age" which sounds mysterious and perhaps a little bit wise and confident.   I've moved from infant to child, from teen to adult, from daughter to wife, wife to mother, from actively raising children to empty nest.  From empty nest to full nest a few times over, giving more than a helping hand to children and grandchildren.  From a single working mom to full-time homemaker and to supposed retirement.  From pre-pubescent to childbearing to menopausal.  I've been through the seasons of life.

I have often been alone, but seldom lonely.  I've had (and have) the joy of true love.  I've raked over the coals of my past, given forgiveness every place it was due, sometimes repeatedly until I was sure it was all said and done and then applied forgiveness to myself, as well. 

The past decade or so of my life has been hard.  No more or less than anyone else might have experienced.  I'm not whining about the hands I was dealt in the past ten years.  We all have faced seasons that were long and tedious, heartbreaking and mind bending.  I coped in the only way I knew how when I felt afraid, downhearted, angry or grieving.  I worked.  I wrote, I cleaned, I planned for and saw projects through from start to finish, I offered up my help to others and worked my fingers to the bone.  When life got harder, I worked hard and harder.  And the harder I worked the more I lay aside the very things that marked me as the individual I was born to be, as well as the good things that had kept me strong when I was young.

Like natural seasons, all seasons do eventually come to an end. The beginning signs of my last season ending were very subtle, so much so that I didn't realize what was happening and then I began to sense it more and more.  I had a strong feeling that I was standing on the precipice of a whole new life.  That's why I've given this blog the name, A Fresh Season of Life, and why I've chosen to launch it on the first day of Autumn.

At the start of this sixth decade, I'd smugly said, "I don't need to find myself.  I know just who I am..."  Oh, gee.  It turns out that I don't know who I am.  This woman, the woman I am today, is not the woman I was at 30, or the woman I was at 40 and not the woman I was at 50.  I've changed.  

This summer I took on a responsibility that in the past would have made me whine and complain and fuss about, before I settled to just doing it.  But this time, I felt total peace.  At one point I began supervising a crafting session with my five-year-old grandson.  I let him choose what he wanted to do.  As he cut and pasted, painted and drew each day, I found myself feeling restless, and even envious.  A few days later, I picked up paper and scissors and glue and began to make my own piece of art while he worked on whatever project he had in mind.  

As we worked together over the next couple of weeks, I began to recall my own amateur artistic endeavors as an adult.  I'd enjoyed that time to express myself in a different forum than those I'd gravitated to from childhood, writing and singing.  I found that in art, I had a natural eye for color, a certain whimsical style, and fun.  

I'd often crafted with my grandson's mom as she was growing up and I was so enthusiastic about our endeavors that I was once asked to consider creating a homeschool crafting group. Alas it didn't pan out but that I was asked was a big deal to me.

But I hadn't made a fresh piece of art in years.  Why not?  

That was the beginning of the shift.  In the weeks that followed I found myself looking back and discovering many other things I'd pushed aside in the past. Accolades I'd received for certain accomplishments.  Things I'd always enjoyed but no longer had allowed in my life, like playing the piano, singing, swimming.  I rediscovered my personal sense of style.  I started reading books voraciously once more, as I had in my youth.

I'd spent years examining my past and leaving behind the things I felt didn't deserve a place in my future.  Now here I was examining my past all over again, but this time I was choosing to take forward with me the things that, aside from my family, had the most importance to me.  I started to get excited about my future.  

To paraphrase the song, "No Time" by The Guess Who, "Seasons change and so (do) I..."  

I'm looking forward to what this fresh season might bring.