Living in Your Season

"An inner practice is needed to put down what no longer works in order to find what will work now."       - Mark Nepo, drinking from the river of light, p. 182

As I drive down the highway on roads quite familiar, I smile to myself. Fall, I just can't help but love it. Everywhere I look, colors pop; reds, oranges, and yellows pepper the waning green of summer. Before I joined "The Great Resignation," this time of year was so busy that I always seemed to miss the subtle changes that mark the transition from summer to fall. Now I can't get enough of them. I love that each day is like a new painting, the gradual changes in color, the occasional cooler day - all of it.

Where I live, it isn't uncommon to start to hear people fret over the coming winter as soon as the first leaf turns. "It won't be long until it snows," they lament. "I am not looking forward to the gray cold," they grumble. "Winter lasts forever," they sigh. 

It would be easy to find myself caught up in the worry and dread of what may come, but not much comes from that wasted energy. Since I retired I seem to wrestle between thoughts of the busy that was my life, the quiet I now have discovered, and the worry of what might be. As I step into this new season of life, I am trying to learn to be okay with having space to breathe. I'm learning to slow down, count my blessings, and live in this season. I don't need to get out my winter coat quite yet, as some days a fall jacket still isn't even necessary. 

This idea of living and making decisions in the season you are in makes so much sense. More and more, I hear people use this analogy to discuss making decisions based on where they are in life's path. One of my current podcast favorites is Kendra Adachi's Lazy Genius. I'm not sure where she was in my busy mom season, but I could have used her wise words years ago when I juggled mom life, a full-time teaching position, cooking, cleaning, and all the things. Now I'm in this quieter season. Now there is the time to cook - or even bake a little something. When my adult children need a hand with a project or, better yet, need someone to stay with one of the grandgirls, I can do that. 

In this season, I'm learning to enjoy the pause, to make the second cup of coffee, to stare out the window for a bit longer in the morning. The gift of time to take a breath reminds me that this should always have been how I lived. Even in the busiest seasons, I wish I had worked to create these spaces to take life in a little more, to breathe. Here I am still learning lessons in a brand new season. 

If you're reading this in such a crazy busy season of life that you didn't even notice it was autumn, I hope you'll make small iterations in your life routine to allow the space for pause. You might fix quicker meals, order dinner out a little more, get up a little earlier than the rest of your house or stay up a little later to make space in your day for you. If, however, like me, you're living in a season of transition, I hope you take advantage of time to notice the subtle changes and enjoy the time to breathe.