seasons of...

a few christmases ago, my mother gave me this book. mostly because i blatantly pointed out that i wanted it, but my mother is such a person that she most likely would have figured out that i wanted it without my instruction [e.g. she bought me my oprah dvd before i even knew it existed, and who knows i like oprah that much?]

i have discovered recently that i must read this book at least once a year, because it seems that the knowlege it procures so beautifully and willingly i forget just as well after a year or a little less has gone by. the most effective part of this book, which indicates that part that i hsould start reading most often, is a certain section that has to do with the seasons of life. that we all, in a sense, so through 4 seasons in our lives as does the weather of a year.

there is spring, where everything is new and beautiful and exciting and blooming, the sun is shining and the clouds move slowly. there is summer, where things are warm and familiar and things are in full bloom and colorful. there is an autumn, where things begin to wither and change, it gets a little colder and cloudier. and there is inevitably a winter, where things are dead and dying, cold and frail, and the days are mostly cloudy and wet.

for some people, this actually follows the seasons [sometimes i think i'm like that, other times, when alabama doesn't have winter, i have trouble deducing it] and for others, their winter is in spring and their summer is in autumn. what matters is that these things are natural, and inevitable. what i have to realize, and perhaps others who udnerstand my dilemma, is that the seasons of my life do not make me a bad person, and it isn't abnormal to go through a few months that suck like a 2 dollar whore. no one gets angry at mother nature for getting cold, i don't assume it's because the world has done something wrong, or that it is somehow at fault for killing its own flowers. i should listen to that part of me, and understand that i can't hate myself for being sad and troubled for a while, and that it's completely natural and involuntary that things get rocky and difficult sometimes. it's so easy to forget this, because the last time i had trouble was three seasons ago, and by now i've forgotten what it was like to hurt like this. but the last winter helped me prepare for this one, just like all the winters before it prepared for the ones following, and i can get ready for spring.

and in spring, things will be beautiful and wonderful and new again. the truth is, the same things that are going to be beautiful and amazing and exciting this spring are the same things that were new and exciting every spring, but this time, i've changed a little, and it's been three seasons since my last spring too, so i've forgotten what it looks like to see a flower bloom. we cycle through the same seasons, it just gets more intense, and better prepared for, each time.
i think after enough phone calls, talks to sini, and trips home, i'm going to be headed back into spring-mode fairly soon. i have some relationship issues to work out, some old skeletons to get out of the closet, and a few vices that i shouldn't indulge nearly as often. and when that's over, i'll go back to liking myself, and understanding myself, and maybe this time i'll remember all of this when winter comes again.

maybe that's all growing up really is. remembering spring in winter and remembering winter in spring.

<3gen>