New Season

I start a new job tomorrow. This change promises ambiguity and uncertainty, it promises wisdom and influence.

I’m watching this cycle, the ever present turn of comfort into discomfort, of fertile fields to fallow ones. I return to this space, time and time again. From the outside, appears as though I love this space, these season changes, that I am happiest here.

In truth, this change is as achy and arthritic as the drive of summer into fall. My confidence is tested, my patterns are disrupted, and my soft comforts are stolen from me. I do not love this change. I would avoid it if I could.

But the call for growth demands a sacrifice, and season after I season, I throw my ego into the grinder again to make rich fertilizer for some future garden whose fruits I cannot know. The only option is to grow old and tired and weak, to wither on the vine. Persistence is a lie. There is only untameable, wild growth, or there is decay.

Let us grow, then! Let us lay down our past selves, their hopes and dreams and wonders, their hardships, aches, and struggles, and let us turn their victories and failures into grist for future seasons. Let us till, and sow, and toil. And by the sweat of our brow, and the sweet and sharp gifts of change, let us find new selves, new hearts and new minds to fill with success and sorrow, until we are swollen and brimming with change.