Spring is a time for new beginnings. The air becomes warmer so the plants can return to life. The smell of spring hits our noses, as the world seems to wake up from its seemingly endless slumber. But like every new beginning something “old” must be left behind. The beautiful white snow must melt away, feeding rivers and streams and leaving behind mud and muck until the grass and flowers get a chance to bloom again. So it’s a general rule of thumb that spring, like many new beginnings, it is generally a mess before it turns into something beautiful.
Alexis Mundis
Recently, I was having lunch with a friend and she was telling me about her long string of bad dates. She said she’s looking for someone to settle down with but can’t seem to find “the one”. In the same breath, she told me that her weekend plans were to volunteer with her interfaith group, work on her part time job producing a television show, organize an event for her dating group, go to two committee meetings for her church, and if she had time, she was going to work on unpacking her apartment which still was sitting in boxes from her move months ago.
Before I could even process my own thoughts, I opened my mouth and said out loud “ How can you expect to find someone if there’s not even a place for them in your life?”. She fell into a silence and I could not decipher if she was in the midst of silent contemplation or quietly fighting back rage. I quickly changed the subject and we finished our lunch. The next day, I got my answer; she rushed up to me and was really excited to see me. It turns out what I said had struck a nerve. She spent the night thinking about it and had decided to dedicate time and energy to making room in her life for what she wanted. While she went into depth about her plans, I kept thinking about how my off-handed comment had impacted her so greatly. Could it really be so simple as to make room for change and if you do, will it come?
Just like a yard in the spring, right now my life is being pushed towards change. I am two weeks away from moving out on my own after a divorce. During the last year and a half of my relationship, I have lost touch with the lesbian community I once was so actively involved in. My life was too full of exhaustion from trying to save the failing marriage and embarrassment of being just another statistic. I left no space in my life for a community I worked so hard to connect to just a few years earlier. Before I walked out the door, leaving my ex-wife and old apartment behind, I vowed that I would work to create that connection to the lesbian community again. Connections that will allow me to be nourished, inspired, and thrive. I know I will need to create the physical and emotional space in my life to make room for the part of me that had been pushed out.
Mother Nature knows that to make something beautiful you sometimes need to make a mess first, so I’m ready to dive into the muck of my new world. In order to find a life partner or a reconnection to our community, we must use our experiences or our “muck” to feed the beautiful changes that come our way. As much as I look forward to the beauty and warmth that spring will bring, I also look forward to the beauty and warmth that reconnecting to my community will bring. I embrace the changes that will forever be a part of my life.
