Changing Seasons…

God gave us nature, not Mother Nature, to help us to understand how life works. Nature is God’s handiwork. It is unlimited creativity played out in our reality. Every growing thing has a cycle, a pattern that plays out. It has a time to grow and a time to establish roots and a time to flourish and a time to regenerate and a time to start again. The trees change colors and slim down to mere sticks to survive the winters. All things on a cycle and all things according to a plan. Our lives are similar. We go through different seasons, periods of time with different experiences and challenges. We do not remain the same. Nothing remains the same. We change, we grow, we regress, we learn, we fail, we win, we know and then we don’t know. Our problem isn’t in recognizing that we are in a different season. Our problem is in trying to apply the lessons of previous seasons to the current time. Nothing remains the same. Embrace the season you are in.

In our early formative years we learned many things. Some of which doesn’t help us today. Maybe we learned to people please so that others would like us and give us their approval. Maybe we didn’t always feel safe and as such came up with defense mechanisms to help us get by. Maybe we learned to disarm anger with humor. Point being, we all did what we thought we needed to do to be okay. Some of us learned silence worked best. Others learned that loudness repelled predators. We learned a way to be that seemed to work until it no longer worked. We could be safe without having to garner the world’s approval. We didn’t always have to fit in. The season changed and sometimes we didn’t see it. Embrace the season you are in.

In midlife we learned to be sufficient and that others depended upon us to have their needs met. We figured out that we did not always get to do what we wanted to do. The seasons changed. Our priorities changed. We needed to find a way to adapt to the new conditions, the aging body, the change of preferences. We wanted the fun, but a different kind of fun. Though our minds were similar, our bodies were not the same. We learned some painful lessons and still had some to endure. We sort of got it together in terms of making sure things were right and still worked toward what wasn’t right.The season changed. Our independence brought new opportunities to do things differently or else do things in the same way. We adapted and sometimes didn’t. We tried to hold on to the wrong seasons. Things from the old season don’t work in the new season. How could they? The season changed. Embrace the season you are in.

Then, unexpectedly and without sufficient warning, you find yourself in yet another season. The kids are grown and busy navigating their own seasons. You probably make a little more money and don’t still experience the finance angst that once held you captive. Necessities no longer taking center stage, your focus changes. Your finally willing to embrace the question (again), what do I really want out of this life? You had it in the last season, but you were way too busy to give it any thought. You are either retired or very close. You can’t quite seem to embrace the daily subordination any longer. You no longer want to play, glad hand or do the politics. It’s a slower time which is not easily accepted. You’ve likely built a life based on your production and retirement feels suspect. Hopefully you find a misplaced dream or two. You have to work to convince your mind that it’s okay not to do, do, do, do… It’s no longer the height of summer. It’s a time to build on your love investments. It’s a time to appreciate all those things you missed in the frenzy to work it all out. What you did you did and what you didn’t do, you didn’t do. And, it’s okay. The season changed. It’s not about locating a prior season, it’s about embracing the season you are in.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to lament the seasons of your life, nor have regrets about what you could have done or who you could have been. You chose what you chose when you chose it. All of us had to survive some things, some much worse than others. We all developed ideas about how life worked and we all got it wrong to some extent. Some of the lessons from your earlier seasons have no part today. Who you were is never who you are today. What you faced and overcame, I never faced. What I fought through, you never experienced. Like nature teaches us, we are all on a journey and we are all in changing seasons of life. We may have flourished and failed, but we learned. We learned to adapt and overcome and take the world’s challenges on, one day at a time in the season we are in. Embrace the season you are in and flourish in it. Nothing stays the same.

Just some good thoughts…