I think I want to cry today. Not because my life is going badly. But that December is a good period to consider the quiet death of many things. And January is a mental shift to try to clear that and break new ground to where I want to grow.
Concrete example for laying out a garden of my mental state. Concrete is the death of my old self, but a good foundation on which to build. A garden is life, but needs to be fed or fertilized from the death of what has not succeeded. Gardens are messy with life and take some thought and care to corral. But I am mixing my metaphors here like the concrete in the first sentence and am feeling rather trapped by the thickness I have stirred up.
Anyway, I am a bit tired, but in a good way. I spent the last month of the year pondering what I thought about 2022. I usually compose a letter to send to my friends. This would be my seventh year if I kept up the habit. But it was a self-created rule to do so. And I am trying to get better about letting things go rather than chaining myself to a tradition that I forgot my joy in starting. So I let the end of the year pass and waited to see how I felt about it rather than forcing myself to create a lens to focus.
So, this is not a resolution for a changed self, but a commitment to maintenance, to forgiveness of what parts of me no longer hold. A mourning of parts of me that no longer are present in my life. A consideration for how to prune with care those sections so I might be free to focus on other areas of interest and challenge. I don't know how long clarity lasts, but like Matthew 12:43-45, I am trying to clean my house and pray that it lasts. Through grace, effort, and thoughtfulness, maybe unwelcome guests of old habits and ill-advised pursuits will be avoided. For entropy is a constant chaos in the universe.
I am ready to weep as a man who is longing for his home. I am looking for a house, but it has led me to consider and be grateful for the different homes through which I lived in different stages and how they provided for my needs and challenged me to see how I would contribute to the areas where I recognized the opportunity.
I am full of thoughts today as the clouds gather over a thirsty land. For growth requires watering and I am preparing to weather it. Not because I am sad, but in recognition of the process of acceptance and new life.
So I am listening to Seabird, mourning that they only released three main albums, but rejoicing in the midst of their creative drive. The way the songs flow to new life and rhythms within, hoping that I navigate my life with the same grace when the currents change around me.
