The Neutrality Of Late

The leaves fall once again and as I sit and watch the golden parade of color, I can’t help but contemplate all that has changed in this last year for me. It has been monumental. Filled with both tragedy and pain but also love and growth. It often takes hardship and struggles to ignite change – to create a desire to evolve and progress. It is my inner life that appears to have changed the most which, of course, has in turn, affected my outer life tremendously. It is from within that all lasting change stems from after all.

Many of the changes that have taken place in me I have desired for many years. I feel a sense of relief and accomplishment that they have finally been realized. Towards the end, I had feared I would never break free of the bonds that held me to the destructive familiarity that was all I knew. Then love poured into my life and I watched as it softened the hard, desolate and barren ground to a point where the seeds of hope could sprout. Now they have taken root and grow towards the warmth of sunlight that had not touched this inner landscape for many years.

Perhaps most notable is the change in my patterns of thought and the rewiring of thoughts and consequent action that follows. These changes don’t seem to be fleeting or based on a temporary burst of optimism. Time has begun to prove that they carry lasting resolve. What a glorious outcome.

I feel clean. I feel the breath of life coursing through my bones. There is hope. Each day is begun with optimism and gratitude. All things before this day fade into a dream that I cannot allow myself to ponder because there is no need. And so I allow it to fade peacefully. Perhaps now is the time when there can be a harvest – where there can be plenty.

Many good things have taken flight but nothing is gained without sacrifice. I’ve had to surrender my fears, abandon the thoughts that did not serve me and consciously seek out joy. I’ve had to let many things go. Ties were cut with the things and the people who did not align with the hope I was looking for. It did not come without pain and sadness but we all must find our own path. I have accepted that.

Every day has a neutrality to it as a general starting point and as the day progresses, it takes shape accordingly. Alas, I feel so foreign in this world of neutrality. I feel my fears trying to push through in the back of my mind but I somehow hold them at bay. I dream at night of my old life and patterns and when I wake I wonder if my changes will last – if this new life is real. I feel calm but is it because I am at peace? Or is this the calm before the storm? There are many things that bring me great pain with each passing day but I have chosen to not give them focus because they are beyond my control. I have learned to surrender what I cannot control.

What I can control though, is how I live today and what I do to set myself up for success tomorrow. Life never ceases to intoxicate with mystery where both sadness and joy collide to form this reality.