Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life.
~ S.D. Gordon
With the snow melting outside my window and some serious nesting going on inside — we worked on the nursery this weekend — I’ve been thinking a lot about new life and fresh starts.
It was almost exactly a year ago that that I first let myself seriously think about leaving a very good job that was making me profoundly unhappy. I wanted to write and I desperately needed a creative outlet. I wanted to have a family, to have time to wander and to spend more than a few scattered moments with my family and friends, instead of collapsing in exhaustion at the end of every day.
Some serious medical issues followed just after Easter and they lit a fire under me. Once I came out the other side, I started Prairie Style File. It took all of two weeks for me to know, without a doubt, that I’d rather be writing than doing anything else.
But it still took me months of fretting, praying and torturing my closest friends and family with my endless stream of second thoughts before I had the courage to start planning my new career, my new life. I was wounded and I was terrified, but I was also startlingly sure that this was the right direction, the right time. I just needed the strength to do it.
A year later, my life is completely different. And I’m exactly where I need to be.
Writing for Prairie Style File has reaffirmed that it’s possible to experience so many beautiful and interesting things when I stay connected to the things that matter to me. By giving them space, time and resources to grow, my entire perspective has changed. So many people I interview for this blog — artists, shop owners and even people I stop on the street — tell me that they’ve had a similar experience, a release and a new sense of purpose after they took an unexpected step.
This is a season of renewal, of growth, of starting over. If there’s something burning inside you this spring, I hope that this is the year it finds new life.
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Happy Easter!