noticing

 

We are in that typical New England time of year where we oscillate between desperation that it is still so cold out, and unbridled joy when the sun feels like we're already in mid-summer. Neighbors we haven't seen in months are suddenly outside on their annual dog walks. New noises drift through open windows. I am getting excited to have some outdoor plants this year. We don't have any private outdoor space, just a little bit of gravel around our parking spot and then a large porch connected to the shared entrance to our building. I want to put some pots of flowers out (maybe zinnias? and marigolds?) and attempt some tomatoes as well. I am being patient, though. Most of the time, the first warm day hits and I plant everything too early, dooming myself to watch their slow and anticlimactic demise. Instead, I've been taking my dog walks past the houses with the best, most cared for gardens and front porches. Like my own personal groundhogs, I'm waiting for the first sign of freshly bought mulch or clay pots pulled from the garage, the first hopeful tray of grocery store pansies sitting in the driveway waiting to be repotted. These garden houses certainly know better than me, and I'm trying to notice and follow their lead. 

I spend a lot of my time running around from one thing to the next, so much so that sometimes it's easy to miss that the underlying feeling of frustration underneath is my impatience that this is also a season of waiting. When I take the time to notice, I can see that both Chris and I have landed in a place we used to dream of. This June will mark five years since we've been together, and while that is such an incredibly small percentage of a life it is also a huge percentage of the time we've been adults. It feels like we've made it to the end of a chapter, and have checked off a lot of dreams: getting married, getting a dog, Chris working at a fire department, me skating in shows and coaching full time, an ambitious road trip honeymoon. I want to not just notice but to revel in these achievements, these things that felt so out of reach just five years ago when we whispered them to each other. But it's hard to revel in something when I am also finding myself anxious for the next step, itchy and restless and desperate for some direction so I can know who I am in the world. 

I am noticing that I spent a lot of the beginning of my twenties in survival mode, desperate to become someone and changing rapidly as I discovered who that was supposed to be. My inner world has settled more now that I am 26, and I feel more capable of looking at the whole picture of the person that I am. There are so may pieces I am dissatisfied with; how I cry almost every time I say what I think, how I can get so angry and combative before I've even noticed myself starting to get frustrated. I'm proud of the person I've become, but I also think I'm not always a good friend. I would like to be more level headed. I would like to feel like more of a grown-up to myself. 

This noticing sucks so much more than noticing when the first crocuses pushed through the snow, or when you can first smell the wet dirt in March. I hate it and I want to push it away. It's not a task that I can add to my monthly list, or an aesthetic little reset I can make a tiktok about. There is no quick fix. While I know it's good to look into the deeper recesses of yourself, I also just DON'T WANT TO and I really hate that in so many ways I am the problem. hi! It's me. 

I am noticing what makes me uncomfortable and what makes me comfortable. I'm noticing the thousand ways each of those is good and each of those is bad. I am noticing that I am in a season where I need to listen a lot more than I usually do, and I'm noticing it's high time I challenged my gut reactions, old dreams, ways things have always been, and the inner dialogue that tells me if I'm behaving the way I want to. I am taking the time to notice what is next, to notice where I am going, instead of racing there and misunderstanding the path. Someday, I would love to turn 36. I would love to have decade-old friendships and feel like todays demons are well behind me. And I would love to be in-tune enough with myself and with the world to know when a season is coming, and to sense when it is time to plant.