It’s 5:48am and I open my sunroom doors to check the temperature of the air while my coffee brews. Immediately it hits my face. Ah. Spring. At last.
I greet the day like a hope fulfilled. I have waited for the arrival of this new season, wished for it to hurry in while enduring the cold, wet, grey Kentucky winter, and finally, it is here. Like a gift, it is among us.
As the sunshine spreads its light across our farm, I tell myself to open up the windows and doors, welcoming the air to sweep through our house like a cleansing of winter drudgery and blues. Everything instantly feels lighter, better. Like a hard reset, it’s a new day. A new season. What can we glean from it?
Something about the turning over of seasons feels so refreshing. So invigorating. No wonder why the idea of spring cleaning appeals to so many of us. Mother Nature is tangibly refreshing herself, why shouldn’t we? So, we follow suit, and the energy in our daily lives begins to shift.
In our household, the rhythm changes almost dramatically. Spring sports recommence and our family calendar fills up with practices and games and a dozen more commitments. It’s as if an earthly clock says, “Ready, set, GO!” We get busier and, before I know it, all the order that we had mastered in the season before quickly becomes disorderly. Routines and regimens are busted, and then ensues a stressed-out mom.
I consider myself a regimented person. I like order and patterns and routinely check lists. To some, the structure may seem oppressive, but to me, it feels safe and secure. I didn’t have much consistency in my own childhood growing up, so when I left home for college, I learned the hard way that consistency gets you places. It keeps you focused, grounded, driven. As a parent, providing solidarity and structure for my kids feels like one of the best things I bring to the table because I believe in the marrow of my bones that children need consistency. They need things they can count on, as do I. So, when the routines rapidly die out and the frenzy takes over our schedules, I find myself unraveling.
Sometimes I laugh at the thought of my need for order and the fact that I have three kids. Am I delusional to think one could have a smooth, organized life when mothering two preteens and a toddler? Is there such a thing?!
The season calls us to reset and I ask myself to do the same with my expectations. As I’m learning now, one of the struggles of parenting is finding the balance in the dichotomy between holding on and letting go of a multitude of things. Personally, in this season, I am trying to find the balance between holding on to important regimens and letting go of being too regimented. I’ll admit, this is a struggle for me as a parent, and being married to someone who is disciplined in completely opposite ways than I am, it’s also a struggle for me in my marriage.
Life is all about refinement. It’s about improvement. And it’s about the changing of seasons. In this new season, I am reminding myself that we can give ourselves permission to abandon old ways for new ways. We can glean wisdom and understanding from the season before and use it to enhance a new season.
No matter winter, spring, summer or fall, what I desire more than the dependency of our routines is happy, thriving kids, and if busted routines and mad chaos are the contributing factors to a childhood they look back on fondly and remember as “good,” then it’s worth it.
Happy Spring, dear reader. What can we glean from it?
-by Destini McPherson
