Christina Metcalf

Most of us understand that life is about seasons.

There are seasons of growth, seasons of release, seasons of rest or laying dormant.

But I think the part that’s confusing is identifying which season you’re in.

Growth is probably the easiest one to identify because you feel a blossoming things are happening for you. You have a spring-like energy that you maybe didn’t feel before or haven’t felt in a while. It’s kind of hard to ignore a growth season. The birds are chirping, the plants are bursting forth with fruits and flowers. It’s glorious.

But what I think is confusing for a lot of women is we tend to take the idea of a growth season literally like raising a family.

When we do that, it means when the family no longer needs you, when that family is raised, when they’ve flown the nest, then you’re going into a dormant season.

A lot of women feel like a plant after a harvest at that moment like the corn stalks drying out in fields. They’ve served their purpose. They are now forgotten and left behind.

But that’s doesn’t have to be the case.

“I don’t think about my life in terms of numbers. First of all, I ain’t never gonna be old because I ain’t got time to be old. I can’t stop long enough to grow old.” – Dolly Parton

If you feel like you need that dormant season to reflect on your next one then by all means take it.

But don’t assume that because the family has left, the children have grown, that you are as worthless as those corn stocks in a field.

The point of your life is not to wrinkle up and dry out when your family obligations change or whatever obligations you had to others have changed.

This can be a time of tremendous growth because you no longer have to put all your energy into bearing that fruit and growing those relationships. That energy you saved for other people can be used for something that you really want to do.

Don’t assume because the harvest has ended that you are left to whither in a field.

We’re not plants, not annuals at least.

This may be the first time in 25 years you are able to do what you want to do. Enjoy that time of quiet reflection and planting before the next busy season of rebirth and growth.

Consider what other things are out there, what passions ignite you, and where you are going or could go. Enjoy this dreamy, reflective time.

Soon you will be planting again, just not in the same way.

This next planting will be for you.

Then jump into that next period of growth and embrace things you may have put aside in your life a quarter century ago.

Embrace it all. Relish the possibilities. Chart your next course, your next adventure.

And..

Grow.

Launch.

Click your ruby heels together.

Feel that energy return to you like a wave crashing on the shore.

Enjoy your second half in a way you may not have been able to do in the first several decades of your life.

What are you good at?

What have you forgotten that you’re good at?