Fake Spring
Thawing out in a new climate
To say that I haven’t been keeping it together is an understatement.
Friends have been attributing such things to Venus, Mercury, retrogrades, eclipses, and pretty much everything around the sun. While I subscribe to this notion to a degree, I also tend to forget that I am under a tremendous amount of stress.
It only occurred to me today — after sobbing while putting my jewelry away — that I need to slow the fuck down. I keep failing to remember that, barely one month ago, I flew away (quite literally) from my home of almost 20 years and landed in Denver.
Since then, to some extent, I think that I’ve just been faking it ‘til I make it. By that, I mean I’ve been absorbing my surroundings, ebbing and flowing with the arrival of spring—the arrival of me, really.
Luckily, not much has required faking — I can’t remember the last time I felt this whole. However, I keep forgetting that, before anything beautiful can bloom, the last of winter needs to abate. There needs to be a consistent thaw that makes room for the sprouting of what has been planted.
I think I’ve been tripping over myself because I haven’t stopped running since I landed. For maybe the first time in my life, there is so much to love about everything, everyone, and everywhere happening to me. It’s been hard to say no.
Sometimes, though, I know that I do better when I give myself boundaries. This is especially true when I’m going through a rough time, even if it’s for positive change.
I’m going to try my best not to view these boundaries as limitations, but rather as conditions that must temporarily remain in place if I want to eventually thrive.
By that, I mean I will kick and scream until I succumb to the cocooning.
If I do it right, the cocoon will be so cozy that I’ll never want to leave. Truthfully, that’s a fear I’ve had — becoming a shut-in if I spend too much time in seclusion healing up — but I think I need to have faith in my new surroundings. If things have been so sweet and fulfilling that I haven’t bothered to pause and catch my breath, I have no reason to believe they’ll change during this respite.
