Yesterday was the first day of spring, and it’s still very cold outside. The heat is still up high, and we’re still wearing sweaters, although I have given up my boots. I will take my cold toes over clomping around in snow boots. I’ve been having a bit of a tough time coping with some unstable situations, nothing that we can’t handle, but it’s drawn me down a rabbit hole of thinking that I’m having a hard time escaping.
Things are not easy right now. I know that’s the case for many people, for many people in far worse situations than I am, in far worse places in the world. NPR was reporting on what just happened in Austin, and hearing about the data breaches on Facebook, and the beleaguered communities here in Toronto, I know I’m lucky in so many ways. But that’s what’s hard about facing challenges, sometimes, you’re blinded by the stress, the everyday nonsense, and can’t look beyond.
My family is very supportive of my edict to “get outside” on the weekends. We’ve spent so much time inside this winter, not doing the things we really enjoy, snowshoeing, skiing (well, in my mind I enjoy skiing, we never go), walking through the woods. We attempted to do it this weekend at Mountsberg, a provincial park near Hamilton, and it was crowded, filled with people, and exactly the opposite of what I needed. When I feel trapped or frustrated, I think I like open skies and big trees and the sound of the wind and fresh air and all kinds of other things that remind you that even when the everyday is at its worst, you can still put your feet down on solid ground and move them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want and where I want to go next. This idea of middle age being a stopping point, but also a starting gate–all the building blocks of what’s come before leading me here, to this place, one that’s of transition. The only problem being I’m not at all sure what I want to transition to. I’m happy to take suggestions…
In these moments, when it’s so very hard to see what’s next, I miss my mother, my grandmother, so very much. I don’t know what it is about that kind of ache that comes to whenever I’m feeling alone or overwhelmed or in a place where I don’t know how to make a decision. At this point, I’ve lived far longer without them than I ever did with them, but the visceral missing them never seems to waver. The same questions run through my mind, would they be proud of me, how would they counsel me, how would I be different if they were still here. My grandmother would have been 98, which feels impossible. We just don’t live that long. Even knowing she wouldn’t still be here when she’s not here is a roundabout way of saying that I still miss her, and her advice, and her thoughts about what to do next, where to go in this meandering way of life.
Anyway. Those are thoughts for a Wednesday. I’m saying little, I’m afraid.