Spring into action

If I had to choose a season that is my favorite, I'd have to say spring. I love to see new seedlings spring up, watch the leaves grow from the branches, and the cherry blossoms bloom in DC.

I also think spring could describe my life right now. I have shaken the ice of relapse off my strong body and can see the budding of new life. I have the time to grow and mature in my recovery before the blistering summer has a chance to burn it up. There is the opportunity to bloom in such a way that recovery is, truly, evident in my face.

I really think our lives cycle, much like the four seasons of the year. Of course there's the biological progression from being born in spring and dying in winter. But there's also the periods we go through in life. There is always a death to something before the new thing grows. We have to let down old habits in order to grasp better ones. If we don't bury decaying relationships there's no opportunities to build new ones...our hands are too full grasping frozen branches.

If the body ideal is not let go of, the idea that diets will get my body where I want it to go, there's no way I'm going to grasp what it really means to eat normally. To eat what I crave, not stuff myself with it. To savor a meal without analyzing it. To eat something and not think of it as taboo.

I am slightly ambivalent about this, so I guess I am right at the cusp of spring. The leaves of hope are still trying to push through melting ice. Better coping mechanism are still trying to grow from beneath the snow. The idea that recovery is something I want is still expectantly waiting for the first sign of warm weather.

But, don't think, even for one second, that all these things will happen. And in this new spring of my life the beauty will be just as breathtaking as cherry blossoms in bloom all over a city.