Listen. Listen. Something is coming, something new. You can see it in the sunrises, feel it in the air. The wind has lost its bite, at long last. There is moisture in the air again, bringing to life the smells of the salt-and-pepper river and the loamy earth. The trees are raising deep wine buds, toasting the new season. The world has won the great gambling match. The atmosphere changes hands once again.
Can’t you feel it waking up inside you? There has never been a year such as this one, where the patterns of your life have followed the patterns of the earth. The summer was a golden glory, and in the autumn that all began to fade. But this winter. Something died this winter. Something cracked and split you. The days ran together, February-gray and bitter. There was only a little snow, but there was rain, and it muddied your circumstances and sloshed your emotions into a monochrome, soupy mess. You remember that pain, that pain that wrenched your mouth open in silent screams in the shower, that pain that made it hard to even pray.
You remember that pain. This pain is different. It’s a soreness, an ache. It’s the knowledge that things are still not as they should be. But the breakthrough is tangible. All creation is waiting on those stubborn green shoots to gasp through the ground. You want to call to them, “Yes, yes! I know what you’re feeling, what you’re waiting for! I am growing too!” Your feet tingle with the anticipation of running into the future, misty like the morning after a rain. You can hear the newness of it all outside the door of your house, waiting to come in. Hope breaks through the hull of the seed planted deep in your heart.
You’re almost through the crust of the earth. Through the dirt particles above you, you can see the sky.
There are still goodbyes to come. You’ve said goodbye to the future you built, abandoned that brick-and-mortar dream for now. There may be no mornings waking up next to him. There may be no late-night runs to CVS for ice cream with her. There may be no drives by the seaside, at least, not for a while yet. But maybe it won’t feel as much like a goodbye as you are dreading. Maybe it will feel like a “See you soon.” And maybe there will be plane rides back and forth and reunions in airports and wide, wide skies and friends that you would have never otherwise gotten to meet. Maybe something deeper and realer will be born. Maybe it will be better than it was before.
The only way you will know is if you let it happen.
What else can you do, little seedling? You can trust in the roots that you share, you can let the rain water you, and you can believe that you will both grow into something beautiful.
If I am ever to get a tattoo, I want a small sprout on my shoulder. I want to remember that I am always growing, that I will never know it all. I want to remember that as the rain and the snow fall from the sky, they do not return, but they water the earth and bring forth life, and that what God sends me will never return to him unfinished. But most of all, I want to remember what it feels like to grow. It feels like standing in the middle of a battlefield. It feels like watching the morning light ooze through the cracks in your shades and wondering if that light will ever touch you. It feels like a claw through the center of your ribs, ripping out the things you thought you needed. And it feels like being made more human, more whole in spite of the brokenness.
I want you to remember these things too. The pain might be too much. The loneliness will slink out of your closet and weigh your shoulders down in the night. Someday, you will be led to a good and open place, where the sky is wide and the birds are singing, and you will think to yourself, “I am alive, and it is good.” Today might not be that day. But I hope you still have music that lights a choral in your chest, people who light bonfires in your heart, and faith that holds a shield against all your fears.
But for now, it is spring. And for now, you are here. So step onto the porch and look closely at the world around you. The daffodils are blooming. The robins have not only returned, but they are fat and happy. You will blink, and the trees that look so dead will burst into resurrection. We have this present moment, this tiny iridescent pearl, to have and to hold.
I hope it feels like the shedding of your skin. I hope your soul feels supple and new in the sunlight. I hope it feels like a birth.
Happy birthday.
Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash