The Spring of My Life

Every once in a while, I hear someone refer to their early adulthood as the Spring of their lives, their middle age as the Fall of their lives and aged as the Winter of their Discontent (swiped that one from Shakespeare). But the Spring of someone's life always seems to refer to when they were anywhere from eighteen to twenty-nine years old.

I am past my twenties, I won't say how far past, but those days are gone. Thank God. And I am in the Spring of my life, maybe for the first time. I'm sitting in my home, looking out over the horizon of the city, seeing green life poke its nose into Toronto. It's still cool and windy, but Spring is shyly poking it's head out of the trees and ground. Taking a look around to see if it's safe to bloom into riotous life, to see if Winter is over. The Winter of my discontent is finally over, but it took a long time for it to happen.

I think I am aging backwards, if that makes any sense. Youth brings with it so many unknowns and firsts and excitements, middle age can bring dissatisfaction to many, old age can bring despair to others. I think I started off middle aged, Fall, moved into old age, Winter, and have now moved into Spring with the possibilities of my future hanging just barely within my reach from the trees ready to bloom.

All things are possible now, freed from the restraints of the past. I have a brand-spanking new writing career, I have a new home, I have new friends, I am meeting new people, experiencing new things and, for the most part, have left the crippling shyness of my childhood and early adulthood behind. I wouldn't want to be in my twenties again. Too much confusion. Too little confidence in my own abilities.

But now, in the first Spring of my life, I know where I stand. I know myself better, understand myself better, than ever before. And although I am no Spring chicken in years, I am in my life. For the most part, I am enjoying myself and exploring the possibilities revealing themselves almost daily to me. I know what I want, what I don't want, what is possible and what is not possible for me. But the impossibilities dwindle as the days pass.  And I am made new again because of the choices I've made. Hellish choices which turned out so much better than I could ever have imagined a year and a half ago. Things that didn't happen in the past which I regretted at the time, devastated me at the time, have worked out for the best.

Would I change some of my past? Maybe. Probably. But at the same time, my past experiences have made me who I am today. And I like me, just as I am. Perfection would be boring and leave me with nothing to accomplish. I have many things I want to accomplish and in the next few years, I will achieve want I want to achieve, even if I end up taking a circuitous path to my destination. And it will still be Spring when I get to where I go. 

Whenever or where-ever that may be.