Spring Breeze and Trying new things.

Spring is supposed to be the time when new things start. New life flows from the earth. Grass turns green, flowers bloom, the sun returns from its 5 months hiatus. People fall in love. Summer brings summer love, vacations, rediscovering the great outdoors.That's the narrative that society has accepted.

But it's never felt that way to me. Maybe it was all those years of school. Perhaps it was growing up in a household of academics and marrying and divorcing an academic. It's probably something to do with learned behavior and expectations. It might be that my favorite baseball team has seemingly had it's season over before summer for the past 5 years.

Spring was the end of school. The end of an era. That grade was over. Friends wouldn't be seen every day. The order and structure of the year would dissipate. Spring was bittersweet. So longed for but it signaled the end. Summer vacation was like a weird beast that only came around for a little while and changed the entire world.

Fall was when the new year began. New teachers. New friends. New challenges. Growing older, stronger and bigger. Becoming the next step. Fresh clothes. Fresh books. Fresh trapper keepers or binders. It was exciting. It was the birth of something new.

All my life spring has felt like an ending. Events in my life have followed suit. It usually begins in March. It feels like most funerals I have attended, a thankfully small amount, have been in March. Most of my romantic interpersonal relationships have ended between March and June. And there's that baseball team thing too.

After 34 years, it's easy for my pessimistic nature to carve things in stone. Assuming that this the world and it is flat and we really don't need to talk any more about it.

But the world isn't flat and spring doesn't have to be an ending. Luckily and somewhat embarrassing lately I have tried to work on changing my actions. Doing the same thing expecting a different result is the definition of insanity after all. So I need to do different things. New things. Things that make me grow.

Sometimes it doesn't work out so well. Gathering many of the spare sticks in the yard and breaking them down for the fire pit led to a lovely allergic pollen congestion.

Sometimes it does. Last night, as the sun was just setting, I picked up my daughter from dance. Which I have done almost every Thursday since September. We usually head straight home and get our evening started. Instead I had the impulse to take them down to Minnehaha Falls in the dying light and walk around for just 20 minutes. It was perfect. Today instead of video games and netflix before work, I tried a very light workout and spending 20 minutes outside in the sun. Soaking up the vitamin D. Trying something new.

I am sore and I'm sure I may regret the lack of sunscreen tomorrow. But it felt good to try something new. To sit in the sun in silence and listen to the birds and breeze. To breathe and try and slow the run away train of thought that constantly runs my mind and my heart. Hopefully this spring will be seen as just another day, another moment. Not the end of something but the beginning.