A New Chapter Begins

Spring is coming. Although it seems to be taking forever this year, it is coming. Really.

What I love about Spring is the promise of a new beginning. No more brown and dead grass--new little pale green shoots reach up from the depths to touch the sun. Crumpled Hydrangea blossoms slowly drop to the earth and tumble away, while at it's feet, appear new stalks that will soon produce new balls of color. Everywhere you turn, nature tells us of the promise of rebirth, while the depressing dried stalks of winter slowly disintegrate and disappear. Warm sunshine replaces dreary clouds and cold. Robins and Red-Wing Blackbirds return and sing the praises of better days. To every season, turn, turn, turn. Yea Spring!

This morning God spoke to me. Yep, loudly. Right over Joe singing Beyonce's "All the Single Girls"--which is such a lame song, made worse by Joe singing it in the kitchen. I heard God over Hobbes, sitting smack dab on the counter, in the middle of the coupons, meowing loudly about some kitty issue he is currently having. I even heard him over Em complaining about her teacher in the shower.

And he told me....."Do not work today. You are part-time. Part-time people do not work at home for ridiculously low wages and sacrifice their family time." And I kinda ignored him and logged into the computer anyway.

So, being God, he sent me another message.....this time on the computer, because it apparently wasn't clear enough over Joe/Beyonce in the kitchen. I couldn't access my desktop or drive that I needed in order to work on the newsletter from home. Okay, I got the message. I will do my work AT work. Got it. Thank you, God.

But then, I received yet another message from God. He told me that I need to let go. I need to let the Spring of my life take over and let Winter depart. Some things need to go by the wayside so that rebirth can occur. Change--letting go and embracing the new, unknowing, and sometimes scary. As human beings, change is frightening and we tend to cling to what we know, afraid of the Spring that awaits us. It is a brave person who learns to reach forward in the darkness, trusting that God will not let us fail.

I admire Joe so much for leaving his job of 17 years and trusting that the new job will be okay. And it is--better than okay, actually. He loves his new job! I see his smiling face in the Spring of new opportunity and it empowers me.

As I was talking to Joe about, of all things, trumpet cleaning, I crossed my leg and my Spring sprung. Toenail left me at that very moment. I stood there, looking down, speechless. Joe bent over and took a closer look, not knowing what the heck was on the floor. I knew. I felt it leave--albeit painlessly, it was gone in one fell swoop.

Yes, I could have glued it back on, but I didn't. I gently picked it up and said my goodbyes. Em came running in all of the hoopla and sympathetically screamed "Gross!" and screwed up her face in disgust. We all kinda stood there for a few moments, discussing why toenails depart and agreed it best to just let it go.

R.I.P. Toenail. You are the Winter of my big toe. I am embracing New Toenail, which is already 3/4 of the way in--in essence, it is Spring of my foot.

Goodbye, Toenail. I'm glad we had one last trip together. I'm just really sorry that you didn't hang on until Easter--now that would have been drama!