I woke with a start at 4am this morning. The coming week is pregnant with change, and by four in the morning, my overloaded brain, heavy with the weight of all the unknowns, could no longer rest. It spun and twisted around each anxiety that I haven’t given myself the space to process.
It reminded me of the final days of my long ago pregnancies, when my body couldn’t rest for all of the life humming beneath the surface of my skin. In the quiet hours, I traced the shape of elbows and feet sliding under the surface of my belly, as my baby rolled and kicked in anticipation. Soon, the womb would give way to the wide-open world. Soon, lungs would expand with oxygen and limbs would feel the brush of air. Soon, freedom, space, room to breathe.
Within the next week, my oldest daughter will leave for college, I will begin a new job, and my youngest will begin a new school. The days are ripe, heavy with the impending change, and I have filled them with lists upon lists of things that must get done. As I’ve run from one task to another, I feel the tug of my soul, pulling against the weight of my to-do lists. I worry that I’m not ready in the ways I should be. I feel unprepared and unfinished.
My schedule is slowly sorting itself out, but my soul is just beginning to whisper hints of what it needs to survive in this new space. I asked a friend how she transitions well as she gives birth to a new season, and tears welled up in my eyes at her reply. She said “by stopping”.
How simple and yet, how impossible this sounds. How does the soul stop when the schedule requires us to keep moving? My friend suggests we give ourselves the gift of time. Time for thought, reflection, and acknowledgement. Time to ask ourselves all the questions that bubble to the surface.
At four a.m., time is what my wide-awake soul craves.
Somehow, I expected myself to enter this new season fully ready. But, as every mother knows, all you really need to grow a life is time led by the hand of love. So, I’ll give myself space to trace the lines of impending change as it moves beneath my skin. I will ask myself all the questions that accompany it. And I will trust that breathing space will arrive, as it always does, when giving birth.
