Reflection is a kind guide
Reflection is a kind guide
The blessing of having someone in your life who loves you and stands by you is they can see so many things you don’t or can’t see about yourself. I’ve struggled to find the differences in my life between now and this time last year when the outcome I expected/wanted hasn’t been realized yet.
You see, I was taking 7 classes last December in an effort to graduate on time. And working a part-time job. And finals and Christmas. You get the picture. It was chaos and I was running on fumes, and told myself, desperately, that next Christmas would be different.
But a year later, here I am running on fumes. Trying to make one income for a family of 4 stretch even further during the holidays and during the Christmas season. I’ve been desperately trying to get a job since the end of the summer. Putting in applications every day, messaging recruiters, scheduling discovery calls. I’ve interviewed for several of my dream companies, done up to 3 rounds of interviews along with submitted writing samples only to be turned down. I’ve been banging on doors, pleading, longing for one to open even just a crack.
I’m praying every day that we won’t go into the new year with our circumstances unchanged, but it’s beyond my control, as so many things often are. As much as I hate when people say it, and as cliche, as it is, there’s only one thing within my control to change- and that’s myself. Or at least my response to the situation.
I read a post on Instagram the other day that said “December is a heavy and hopeful month. The End of the best of times, or what is needed to come to an end.”
Maybe the mountain I was hoping to move isn’t moved now (yet) but the mountain I faced then, -If I would ever finish school/my degree as a mom of two kids has been scaled or traded in for another one.
It’s easy to romanticize a past season that is over and a future season that hasn’t happened yet. It’s easy to romanticize the December’s with babies and diapers, and final exams and research papers with cookies, movie watching and decorating in between now that they are over. Just like it was easy to romanticize the December when I would have the job that this degree was for. But now I find myself in between. Not struggling the same way I used to but not settled in the way I hoped to be.
Eckhart Tolle said, “As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.”
This is what I do these days, create a space for transformation to happen, for memories to be made, for grace and love and joy to be found. Reflection is a kind guide. Showing us the best and worst of our past lives, what shifted us forward, what prayers, what actions, what hopes, and dreams. Dreams move me forward now the same as last December.
But back to having loved ones in your corner who see what you can’t. While I was bemoaning the lack of changes recently my husband pointed out how one Sunday afternoon I could make a cup of tea and sit on the bed and watch a show (in between laundry folding and dinner making but still) but he reminded me that a year that wouldn't have been an option. Maybe a little more presence and peace has found me this year.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Then and Now".
