End of February and I've decided that this is a "Tigger" winter: very springy and bouncy, bouncy back and forth from warm to cold.
Today is "spring" again, but this afternoon the forecast is for snow and a thirteen degree drop in temperatures.
It's an unsettling time, especially for a person who traditionally gets hit with a jittery wanderlust during the transitional seasons. Autumn's restlessness is usually accompanied by a period of nesting and cozying up for winter. In spring I had a tendency to peruse the MLS listings online and in the newspaper. A rush of warmer, fresh air makes me want to be on the move.
The other day I had a sort of epiphany about my life.
I realized that personally, as far as family and family life is concerned, I'm also in a restless, between seasons state.
Maybe getting married and beginning to have children is like the "spring" of family life- March and April. Raising the kids- all the ups and downs, ins and outs- is like "summer" and "autumn", say May until September. As they start getting to the point of being grown up and leaving home it's like the beginning of "winter"- October and November, leading up to a grand Christmas season when the main work of child-rearing is done and we celebrate the empty nest.
And then comes January and February: the post-party months. The "Christmas is over but spring and Easter are a long way off yet" months. The "now that you've cleaned up the party mess, what'll you do until the next party?" months.
If, personally speaking, the next "spring" season is retirement, this could be a very long transitional season indeed.
This, "Hey! My life is actually like February!" revelation does nothing to alleviate the restless uncertainty of my existence, but it has helped me to define it for myself. There is a sense of relief in the understanding. There is a little more patience for myself. There is also the realization that I really do have a lot of time to fill and I do need to decide what I want to be when I grow up, or at least what things I would like to accomplish before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
I don't have any concrete plans yet. Apparently I'm not yet bored enough to be motivated to pursue some of my dreams or have any vague hopes realized, but all in good time.
February, in spite of having the fewest days, is typically the longest month of the Canadian year after all.
My feeling is that the post-progeny departure time is another spring: you have the house to yourselves again and there aren't the constraints of having to build ones life around a third (or more) person who has a different lifestyle, time keeping and communication pattern from you. It can be quiet again, but it also allows new growth and a change from holding activity to outward looking behaviour in a way that's difficult when sharing with others.
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