As the days get warmer and the frigid air melts into a sticky Louisiana springtime, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want my springtime to look like this year. I’ve always found that January is not far enough removed from the year before to affect any real change in my life.
It’s too cold, and I’m too tired and too focused on recovering from a spectacularly busy December.
February and March, however, are when the old begins to separate from the new — winter’s gray chill begins to give way to warmer, sunnier skies and the flowers begin to bloom en masse. But so do thistles, the recurring struggles of the yesteryear.
Metaphorical so I think there is great importance on cleaning one’s house as spring begins, in setting new boundaries and creating new habits in the early stages of the year — pruning season, if you will.
Humans are naturally meant to live by the seasons, and as the earth becomes more beautiful, I see an opportunity to beautify our lives as well.
I’ve found quite a lot of meaning in the common saying “touch grass” lately, as I’ve become hyperfixated on when certain people text and call me back, what they think of me and how they perceive me and overall just myself in relation to the world. It’s been a lot of living in my phone and lots of attempts to control things out of my control.
I do need to touch grass, honestly.
Thus, I’ve created more quiet time for prayer, reflection and writing — more time to understand myself and to release control of things I have no business controlling. I’m realizing that I’ve allowed my happiness to be overly dependent on others, which is notoriously unhealthy and certainly does not serve anyone.
I’ve also found that my anxiety is worse when I am idle or unproductive. My emotions need somewhere to go, and an empty schedule has proven no good for me. I always found that I was most at peace while on a run or working out, something that I wasn’t able to do while struggling with my sleep over the last few months. Now that I’m able to sleep a little more while in recovery from my insomnia, I’m back at it.
I’ve since pruned away these two detriments to my life, and in short order, I’ve achieved newfound peace. Prior to changing these habits, I spent so much time wondering what would happen if I cut certain things out and how I would change. I think we get so easily lost in the “what if,” but the truth is that sometimes we need to look at removing things in our lives as opportunities to grow further into ourselves and not as risking losing ourselves.
That said, the pruning season is about more than just cutting things out. It’s about creating space for new growth in your life as well.
For example, I’ve been really itching to become more engaged with poetry I’ve not read before, and in addition, I’ve really been wanting to write more as well. So I went to the library and checked out the collected poems of Pablo Neruda and Sylvia Plath; I’ve also set aside time every night to write my own poetry.
Unlike New Year’s resolutions, these life changes aren’t clouded by the blurriness of the previous year or the fear of expectation in the new year. They are fresh and personal, and free of outside expectation; moreover, they don’t exist for the sake of having a resolution. Over the last few weeks, these new habits have truly been a godsend in my life and have rejuvenated me in a way that has made me feel quite aligned with the springtime.
In trying to find the proper words to describe the potential of spring as a means of restoring and reinvigorating our lives, I’m reminded of a verse from Sylvia Plath’s “Prologue to Spring” in which she writes, “Cheers for spring; for life; for a growing soul.”
This is exactly the encouragement I wish for everyone this springtime, in the spirit of pruning season, that you would allow yourself to grow by cutting off old dead weight and making room for new blooms.
Riley Sanders is a 19-year-old biology major from Denham Springs, La.
