Yes

"But it's sunny outside" she said, pointing at our snowflake covered walls. Trying to explain the concept of seasons to two year olds is difficult when global warming is involved. We spent all morning playing outside, running through the leaves, standing with our arms spread wide, letting the wind blow us whichever way it chose.

Despite the harm I know our poor earth is facing, I've been grateful for the gorgeous weather. It's been lovely and rejuvenating, like spring itself. It's been exactly how I've been feeling, a rebirth of the spirit, a mending of the soul.

I've been trying to say "yes" to things and to stick with those promises. It sounds like such an easy task, but it's been difficult for me these past few months. It's been difficult to agree to go out, to make time for things beyond work, to step out into the world and explore it the way I had always done, the way I was meant to. Sometimes it feels like the real work of my life is simply to savor the beauty around me.

And somewhere along the line, I think I forgot that. Or at the very least, ignored it. Somehow I allowed my job to consume me, and not in the fun way where I devoted my everything to it, but in a way that allowed my waking up each morning for that purpose to define me. I allowed the definition of myself to be reduced to a title.

When in fact, I am so much more than what I do. Of course it is a part of who I am, and I am grateful for the label of teacher, but I am also grateful for the rest of me. I am grateful for the labels of writer, traveler, explorer, thinker, dreamer, sister, daughter, friend. And I am grateful for those pieces of me that cannot be labeled, defined, condensed into words. I am grateful for my layers.

I have never truly considered myself a pessimist, but when it comes to how I view my own life, I always have been. I have always felt that I was lacking something, that I was less than I could be or should be. Even as I write that, I still feel it to be true. And of course, it IS true. There is so much more that I'm capable of. There is so much more that I could be if I just tried. If I just opened myself up to possibility. If I just had a little faith in myself.

But instead of searching inside myself for faith, for strength, for courage, I've looked outward. I've looked to other people. I've looked to define myself in labels, in concepts, in these tiny categories I've created within the world. I've looked for so long at this idea of who I should be that I've forgotten who I already am. I've forgotten what I already have. I've forgotten to embrace my triumphs along with my failures.

And so I am trying now to not only say yes to social invitations, but to say yes to myself as well. Yes, I can be something more, but yes, I am already something. Yes, it is okay to feel a little lost and confused and even sad and alone, but yes, it is also okay to feel happy even if not much has changed. Yes, I am capable of things, but yes, it is going to take more than capability to accomplish them. Yes, I am a dreamer, but yes, I also must live in the real world. Yes, I have a blessed life, but yes, I do want more.

Yes, it is January, but yes, it does feel like spring.