Quiet Contemplation

This last week I have been more contemplative in my thoughts and actions. I have been questioning how I spend my time, and how I would like to spend my time in the future. I am feeling I am ready for one of those “changes” again, a shedding of the skin so to speak. It could just be the time of year, the summer warmth and late nights, or maybe it is the smells in the summer air reminding me of my youth and that time is fleeting. No matter what is causing it, I do feel a desire to change directions a bit. I’m not talking huge, life changing directions, but smaller, day to day changes.

I am one of those people that reexamines my life and my self rather frequently, and when I no longer feel that I am spending my time wisely, I work about trying to change to become more productive or just more fruitful in my time dedications. Like I said, I have been contemplative lately. I see areas where I have given probably too much of my time lately, and neglected other aspects of my life, other aspects that need to be fed and nourished. These parts currently neglected may produce big, healthy new fruit, or they may produce nothing at all, but I do feel the need to trim the tree. I feel like cutting back limbs that seem to no longer grow or blossom new flowers, so that other limbs can become stronger and healthier. Maybe I have just been spending too much time in my gardens (thus the analogy), taking off the dead in the hope that new growth will prosper.

Being the person one wants can only happen now and not later, not when one thinks a “better” time may exist down the road. There is no better time, no later date, only now. This has been a reoccurring thought in my mind lately. I am not seeking to “achieve” anything, but rather make an action of the day, the moment. I can often get lost in the thoughts of events, actions, and people of the past, as well as prospects for the future; sacrificing today trying to remedy the past and getting stuck in hoping for the future. The past is gone, it has been lived and is over and done with. The future is nothing more than a series of todays, so in essence the future is what you make it by what is done today.

Sometimes things just come up in the most unusual places at the most unusual times, but cannot be ignored. It can be as simple as breathing in the summer air, or going for a walk, but there is that nagging tug inside when you know that something must change. This requires a letting go and an acceptance. I often wonder to myself why I hold on to things (people or events) that have no meaning, no place inside me anymore. Is it comfortable? Does it make life familiar? I suppose in some ways it does, but comfortable familiarity isn’t always healthy. I think this is what I have been reflecting on most lately. It is easier to stay stuck and relive events over and over again. There is a rhythm and a repetition which becomes habitual.

My quest for reasoning is probably of no matter, but rather a desire for an understanding and an acting upon. I suppose this is just another layer of the onion. This may come across as unhappiness or sadness on my part which isn’t the case at all. I am very happy, and maybe that is the reason for the change. Often when I feel most secure, I find myself in an itchy skin. As if I am telling myself it is okay to grow out of one layer and start fresh with a new. It is always unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but that is what growth is. I reflect on when I was a growing teenage girl going through a growth spurt. My bones would literally ache at night. Within a year I had grown 5 inches. I suppose growth in the soul can ache as well. It is never easy, but it is always worth it.