75:The Space Between Seasons

For most of my life, there was always a next season waiting.

Finish one stage of training, and begin another.

Complete one challenge, and prepare for the next.

Move to a new place, establish myself, build a career, support a family, develop research, take on more responsibility.

There was rarely much space between seasons.

When one chapter was ending, my instinct was always the same:

What comes next?

Looking back now, I realize how long I have lived this way.

There were difficult seasons when the future was completely unclear. There were years of building, struggling, failing, trying again, and carrying responsibilities that could not simply be put down.

Through all of them, I kept moving.

That way of living served me well.

But recently, a simple thought has begun to emerge:

I did my best with the life I had.

I carried a lot for a long time.

Something inside me becomes quieter when I say those words.

Perhaps I do not need to keep running.

Not forever.

Just for a while.

I have always thought of transitions as something to move through efficiently.

Old season.

Transition.

New season.

The transition itself seemed like a hallway connecting two important rooms. The goal was to move through it and discover what came next.

But perhaps I have misunderstood transition.

Perhaps the space between seasons is not merely a passage.

Perhaps it is a season of its own.

A season when I do not need to know what comes next.

This kind of space can initially feel uncomfortable.

After decades of pursuing goals, an empty field looks like land waiting to be cultivated.

Our instinct is to plant immediately.

Another project.

Another responsibility.

Another purpose.

Another big tree.

But farmers understand something that achievement-oriented people can easily forget.

Sometimes the field needs to rest.

During that time, the land may appear unproductive.

Yet beneath the surface, something is happening.

The soil is recovering.

Old material is becoming nourishment.

The ground is quietly preparing for whatever season comes next.

Perhaps human life needs the same thing.

There may already be seeds scattered around us.

Some may grow.

Some may not.

We do not need to decide immediately which one should become the next great tree.

Perhaps that is precisely the temptation we need to resist.

For the first time, I am beginning to understand that completion does not require an immediate new beginning.

There can simply be space.

And after spending much of life learning how to run, build, achieve, and carry responsibility, perhaps another discipline is waiting for us.

To stop.

To receive.

To notice.

To allow the soil to recover.

To trust that something can be happening even when nothing appears to be happening.

The field can rest.

And so can I.

The next season will come when it comes.

There is no need to pull spring toward us.

For now, perhaps there is enough life in simply being here—in the quiet, fertile space between seasons.