Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Times & Seasons & Potato Weeds

I seriously thought it'd been like 5 days since I last wrote a blog post, but it turns out it's been....a week and a half. #oops

Sometimes I go through phases where I blog every day, or at least a few times a week, and then......then there are the week-and-a-half gaps, haha. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you'd know I'm not *totally* dead to the online world right now. Sometimes I feel like I need a specific reason or event or insightful thought explosion if I'm going to write a whole blog post, which is probably why I get a bit neglectful over here when things get crazy (see: new job that I'm still over-the-moon happy about, friends in town last weekend, various happenings in my dating life.....ahem...)

I'm all about times and seasons in life.

Sometimes I think we get super stuck on continuing to prioritize things just one way, even if it doesn't make sense anymore. One thing I try really hard to do is to constantly reevaulate the WHY of each of the many many many many things on my task list. For example, at the beginning of the year, I decided to start training for a half marathon in May. Guess what? It's May next week, and I'm nowhere near 13.1 miles of in-shape-ness. I felt really stubborn about giving that one up, but a couple months ago when I realized I wasn't looking forward to the race enough or even enjoying the process of training for it, at all, I decided to let it go. I took a long look at the running portion of my life and realized my "happy zen" in that department right now is just a few casual miles a week. Since I'm working really hard this year on proactively eliminating guilt from my life, I refused to let myself feel like a quitter for that. I just recognized that I'd made the decision to start training in a different time and season, and then....things changed. And same goes for other areas of my life. And that's OK :)

One of my favorite stories about times and seasons goes like this:
When I was growing up in Lehi, Utah, USA, my family had a garden large enough that we rotated the corn and potatoes every year. One day my father told me to weed the corn while he weeded the potatoes. As I worked my way down a row of six-inch-high (15 cm) corn, I found a solitary potato plant growing larger and more beautiful than any of the potato plants on Dad’s side of the garden. I called to him and asked, “What should I do with this?” 
Dad barely looked up. “Pull it.” 
Believing he hadn’t realized I was pointing to a potato plant, I objected, “But Dad, it isn’t a weed. It’s a potato.” Again, without looking up, he said, “Not this year. This year it’s a weed. Pull it.” So I did. 
Since then I have often pondered the wisdom of my father’s words. I have come to realize that obedience is not just making a right choice but making a right choice in the right season. (source)
Don't worry, I'm not saying that my blog is a potato weed :)

I just know that one thing I never want out of my blog, or anything else in my life that I love, is for it to feel like a chore or an obligation. I want to be here, be present, at whatever level works best that week or month or year, because it's what I really truly want. And don't worry, I still have a big fat crush on blog world, so there's not a single chance in h-e-hockey-sticks I'm going anywhere :) I just want my words and my presence here to be intentional. And right now, I can't really say if that will be a quick update every other morning with random short stories from my life, or something more like this once a week. I guess we'll see how it all plays out. Following my heart and my gut and stuff :)

Love you all and it's so, so good to write to you this morning. And life is so, SO good right now.


2 comments:

Chantel said...

I'm happy for you :) You deserve all the good things!

Alicia Snow said...

I want the dating deets like asap.