The January to March hump can be a tough one - the weather is relentless, work is usually hectic, it's dark when you leave in the morning and when you come home at night - we all know how it goes... So there's a bit of a feeling of just getting through it and wishing the time away till spring BUT I think I have probably just had the happiest and most transformative JAN-MAR of my life.
This sounds like a big old statement 'of my life'. It's not as though there haven't been days where I've felt a bit hopeless, a little run down or frazzled and stressed but I have felt fully engaged and more awake than I have in years. This is due to a long period (so long...) of trying to work things out and as trite as it sounds there's been a big old chunk of 'working on myself' involved.
We all have those hardest times and perhaps one of the things that makes them so trying is not only how long they go on for but also how long they take to recover from.
No-one ever likes to hear that 'it just takes time' because that always feels like too long. Far too long to get over the aching pains of love or loss, too long to wait to find success and purpose, and an unbearably long wait to find peace of mind and a sense of contentment that has been lost - or perhaps never found before.
When everyday is a struggle tomorrow is too far.
But just because that time stretches beyond imagining it doesn't mean that you won't reach your reprieve in the end.
It's that uncomfortable truth that you have to just take it one day at a time.
We'd all like to wake up in the morning miraculously mended; happy healthy and whole because that way we wouldn't have to face the pain and struggle of slow and genuine healing. The only good thing about the tortoise crawl, and it is a really good thing, is that moment when you look up at yourself and realise you feel good. The wonderful exhilaration of genuine joy and an overwhelming sense of self and of relief.
The next good thing is that it happens again and you laugh at the you of months ago who thought it was then, no it's now - this is the better moment - this is the turn around. Back then you were optimistic but back then it was all still so hard.
What do you suppose comes next? Another epiphany, months, maybe even a couple of years since the first - no now I'm living, now I feel good. Finally I'm better, finally I'm strong. And in those moments it almost feels worth the wait because if it wasn't for the before you wouldn't appreciate the after. It's one of those hard lessons that's worth learning because it's important to know that things can get better even if the journey is arduous and long.
You will need that conviction next time, next time you feel so trodden down and weak that you can't move, you'll know, even if you can't see it, that there's light at the end after all.