From Winter to Spring

          I was hesitant to put this post up, as despite what may be the reality, I try to appear as if I have things together at all times. I am not saying that I am always perfect; far from it. I suppose what I would say is that I have always been someone who can deal with the stress of daily life, and not let them see me sweat, so to speak. Lately though, I have not felt the same. I notice that I have been feeling anxious and stressed over the smallest things. I also can tell that I am thinking about past and future events over and over, letting them interfere with what is going on in the moment. "Breath." I tell myself. "You are fine," I think over and over again. But nothing worked. I was sitting on my bed in a full on panic attack yesterday bawling my eyes out over God only knows what. I curled up in my bed and reached for my phone to get on Twitter. It was then that I saw the news: Lilly Pulitzer had passed away.

          Knowing what you do about me, you would probably guess that I just completely lost it at that point. I mean, how was I to go on with my life when one of my favorite inspirational women had just left this world? I froze for what felt like an hour, and just stared at the news. I felt nothing. I did not cry. I did not know what to do. I clicked on a link to a page with a biography of Lilly. Glazing over the words I had read a hundred times before, I came to a quote by the Queen of Spring herself: "Despite the forecast, live like it's spring." Even though I had read this quote many times before, it was as if the heavens opened and shed their light directly on me, telling me exactly what I needed to do. I did not need to solve the world's problems. I did not need to plan out my life years into the future. No, I needed to treat every day like spring, as in a new beginning. Spring, the time when hope fills the air, and the flowers coming out of the ground remind us of all the beauty that comes out of the dirt of life. Spring, when there is rain which may make a cloudy day, but can wash the earth, making everything fresh and clean. I needed to start thinking of every day as a new spring. When we think about it, it is a great way to go through life. Spring does not pretend that winter never happened, it takes the cold of winter and makes everything new again from it. So we must do with each day. We do not need to pretend that bad things never happen. We need to take what we can from those, and trust that each new day will be one full of new life and hope.