As ready as I am for spring (and ladies I am READY), I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things this winter. It’s been a swing back and forth, seeing all the glorious beauty of the country and city covered in snow, while also climbing the apartment walls and wishing for warm breezes. Jane’s general mood lately has been very “cash me outside” which I can only attribute to cabin fever, because surely 5 is too early for 13.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

This winter has been full of hard lessons, which I’ve noticed usually turn into teaching lessons, which then turn into grace lessons, which eventually become peace. More than anything else I’ve discovered that I want to LEARN. When I used to look at my life in total, I had a laundry list of wants and desires. Wow has that list ever grown small. Because while I still have goals and wishes, the forefront of my life’s intention is to learn. To not be stagnant in my mind, to not be high handed in my relationships, to not be so staunch that I have no room to flex or bend in life’s strong winds.

The truth is we never ever have it all figured out. Not about ourselves. Not about anyone else. To believe that is self delusion.  And MAN is there some serious beauty in that. This winter has taught me that my life isn’t a puzzle to be finished and snapped into place where perfection and the full picture is made clear. It’s always muddled, and there’s new enlightening things waiting just around the corner. I’m a living, breathing, changing, evolving spirit. And so is everyone else.

This winter taught me peace in the middle of uncertainty.

This winter taught me that uncertainty and learning can become peace.

Even when my kindergartner looks me dead in the eye and spills tiny pieces of boiled egg all over my clean floor while I’m simultaneously telling her not to do that thing.

Just kidding, I had zero peace in that moment.

All that philosophical stuff means this: it’s been a hard winter, it’s been a good winter, I’ve learned a lot, I am grateful, and now spring is coming. And that means I can put my kid outside to eat her boiled eggs and spread all the pieces she wants for the birds.

And I’ll watch and smile and ponder why she loves boiled eggs so much, and be so glad deep in my soul I won’t be scrubbing boiled yolk off my floor.

I’m ready for spring’s lessons now.