The Beginning of Things

 To new beginnings. It feels so tender, so soft and almost fragile. It’s no joke, it really is to be marvelled upon. You would think there was grass growing under foot, but really the snow is falling softly. Often winter begets the time of endings and rest. This year winter is the lamb that taught me to rest in the beginning of things.


The beginning and the ending it happened all at once and I, I was okay with that. But in a much more honest sense I wasn’t okay with it at all. I didn’t ask to be put in this situation, I didn’t ask for all this change. But really I did, and I needed it I just didn’t want it. Because it would have been easier to be stagnant and I would have found a way to live with it. I just wouldn’t have been living. So I needed it, I just didn’t want it. 


And the ending of things has taken longer than I wanted and the beginning has taken longer still. Only, the beginning isn’t so bad, it isn’t so sad. So I’m okay with it, the beginning it’s taking its time and that means it will be better this time. I hope. The tortoise won the race after all. 


I could stay in the ending for all the rest of time or I can move onto the beginning. It’s really that simple, its just not easy. I suppose there’s more patience involved than I would have liked and there more compassion, there’s always compassion where I least expect it. Where I don’t know that I need it. 


And what really is life all about if not learning from mistakes and from joy and trying again tomorrow. It getting knocked down flat on your ass over and over and over, and daring to get back up. To go another few rounds knowing you can’t win. Because in the end what will really count is that you got back up, that you tried again. If that’s not the goal then I’ve been doing something wrong and I’m afraid I might have become the old dog that cannot a new trick. But I’ll get back up, and I’ll try agin, and I’ll keep fighting, because new beginnings are worth the risk. They are worth the bruises of failing over and over again. 


So a toast, to new beginnings, may they be sweet, may they be far and wide. 

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