March feels like such a transitional month. Half winter, half spring, a tug of war between snow and early sun. The change between these two seasons feels more extreme than summer-autumn, maybe because of the explosion of life waiting beneath the frost. Where summer gently bends to autumn winds, winter holds tight to the skies.
I am in an in-between time, as well—in between the need for change and the longing for the familiar. One leg in 23, one leg already stretching over into turning 24 before I’ve even fully felt the fact that 23 is over, that it happened at all.
The other week, I saw a beetle while moving some rocks, and it made me think of Port Orchard and the little backyard there—the “little backyard” that connected directly to a forest full of streams and frogs and stinging nettle bushes.
I watched the beetle skitter back into safety, burrowing into the dirt, and remembered that at a different time and place, I would have snatched it up and put it in a container to watch it crawl around, moving through the soil and sticks and rocks I’d put with it, determined to make it comfortable.
I remember that no matter what I did to the habitat, the beetles would always disappear eventually. I didn’t understand it, being no more than four or five. Where did they go? How did they get out? Why did they want to leave?
(Of course, now I know they likely slipped out through gaps in the lids. Nevertheless.)
My attempts to keep beetles as pets do not seem like noteworthy memories until I realize I’ve been doing the same thing for as long as I can remember: Trying to create the perfect environment to stop people from leaving, to stop them from even wanting to leave.
But the thing is, if something is not meant to be there, it will find a way to “escape” and return to where it belongs. You can make it as comfortable as possible, provide everything you think they could ever want, etc. But, if they’re meant to, they will still leave—this is a lesson I have learned again and again.
Things, pets, and people leaving have been one of the most challenging parts of my life. Accepting how we weave in and out of each other’s lives has been a hard pill to swallow over and over.
This isn’t a unique struggle, of course. Always fluffing the nest, always trying to be the ideal fit for every situation, striving to be the easiest version of myself to appease the most people at once. Because then they’ll stay, right? Then I won’t have to feel that barb of believed abandonment that means I’m not good enough, right? The feeling that reinforces the belief that I am not worth it, worth anything, will go away if they just stay this one time, right?
Well, no. The beetle will always find the gap, per se.
Always looking for signs someone is slipping away. Always monitoring expressions, tones, words, what’s there and what’s not, what does it mean, what can I do about it, what did I do to cause it, how can I fix it, etc, etc. Exhausting.
When I was a toddler, I used to try to give away my birthday presents to my friends the same day I got them. Why? You could view it as cute and sweet, and maybe it was, but now that I have more context about who I am, it was more of a warning sign—I have a propensity to give more than I should, often at the wrong times.
Right now, I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time; the sense of harmony and delight I have from day to day is something I cherish. And yet, at the same time, it brings to mind how often I have not felt this lightness, how often I’ve let myself exist in some half-awake daze in an attempt to be loved and accepted. How many times I’ve held tight to such small devotions, thinking it was all I deserved or was all I would ever get.
Knowing this about myself is good—recognizing when the urge to resort to old habits rears its ugly head is great—actively choosing different responses when those times come is stupendous and also stupendously hard at times.
As winter clings to March; the self clings to the familiar. But as spring always wins out in the end, so too does perseverance in self-growth. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for spring.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you find something cool under the next rock you flip—and Happy Easter! He is Risen! Talk about finding something cool behind a rock, right?? The tomb is empty, y’all. Rejoice.