Tuesday, December 01, 2009

A Season for Everything

Life, indeed, has a season for everything.

Sometimes we slip into a season we didn't anticipate or desire. You take stock of yourself one day and realize that you're deeply embedded in a life you weren't expecting. Then comes the moment when you have to decide if you want that life or if it's time to change.

Sometimes we tumble head first into a season of life we seek. We jump off the bridge, dive into the cold water, and hope we can hold our breath long enough. Just long enough. We want to get to the moment when we're comfortable enough that we can tread water, just for awhile, to fully grasp who we are now.

Every life has some seasons of discontent, and hopefully some seasons of pure joy. We all just hope there are more of the latter than the former.

The other day I heard a phrase: "I always grieved for who she might have been." Isn't that a sentiment we can all apply to people in our lives? Sometimes to ourselves? Who she might have been. Who we might have been. Who I might have been. We are all just trying to become the people we are meant to be. We just don't necessarily know who that is.

Robert Frost, that master of seasons, wrote of the road less travelled, although he never used that phrase. He was sorry he couldn't take both the roads because having to choose meant leaving one road untouched. The seasons we choose are like that - choosing one means leaving others behind.

But, of course, we don't always get to choose the seasons of life. Some are thrust upon us while our protestations fall on deaf ears. Some seasons push us to the limit and beyond. Some seasons are all too brief, and some seem to stretch on endlessly.

Regardless of how we get there, by choice or default, I can only believe there's something to be gained from each season. Each season, however we get to it, is part of making us who we are meant to be.