Spring: a season of hope, renewal, and second chances
As we raised our glasses to toast the day today–with milk, with wine, with water–I heard the words we always speak at this time of year, at this celebration, and I wondered at the wishes we always make. For health, for peace, for prosperity. For a second chance, for the strength to begin again. I wonder why we always ask for these things, and why I always feel that the year preceding each toast has been hard-pressed to make the grade.
But oh, this year. What a year it has been. The year of the single mother. I’ve been a refugee, fleeing the total destruction of the future as I’d imagined it, fleeing some horrible calamity to a new future full of fear and uncertainty, but also a sense of… hope. There have been moments where I’ve wanted to lay down and die, because giving up would have meant a kind of death worse than the grave. Times when I absolutely didn’t have the strength to go one more step, but I did it anyway. And with every day that I keep putting one foot in front of the other, with every passing moment that I avoid old habits and steer clear of old arguments that are only made to keep me surpressed, I grow stronger. It’s an incredible moment in everyone’s lives, when they can look at the Goblin King and say, with wonder, “You have no power over me.”
I would tell every single mother I know, to start today. Beginning today, become new. Beginning today, become the woman you’ve always wanted to be. Be a woman of value, of substance, of love and support for others, of kindness and goodness and strength. Be confident in your worth. Know yourself. Forgive yourself. Find happiness: you deserve happiness, you know. Be good, and goodness comes to you. Live in bitterness and despair, and that is all you will ever know.
Fly a kite, join a book club, go back to college. Take on a younger woman to mentor, or find a mentor, yourself. Try one new recipe a week. Throw out all those clothes you’ve been hanging on to for when you lose weight. Go for a walk. Swim a mile. Eat a hand made ice cream from a gourmet shop and laugh when they charge you five bucks for a cone. Say something kind to you child. Say something kind about your ex. Let go.
A friend of mine wrote this. I haven’t even asked if I can reprint it, so I’m sorry… I’ll take it away if you want me to. But I thought it too beautiful and appropriate not to share:
Tags: Easter, hope, rebirth, renewal, single-mom, single-mommy, single-motherThe ugliest houses may hold the most beautiful spirits
when it seems the loneliest times aren’t always spent alone
and the most alone one can imagine, often isn’t at all lonely.
Here then, the earth sits upside-down in a ramshackle way
and in the choices we make, she imparts her resolution, as
among dreadful weeds, the loveliest daisies may yet grow
(fragile, tender, bright)
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