Deciduous trees deal with the harshness of winter by stripping down to bare essentials, knowing there will be a time to leaf out eventually. Evergreen trees opt for an in-between stance, never fully bare, never in broad leaf, holding to their equilibrium through heat and ice the same.
What approach do you take to handle life’s seasons?
While moderation sounds like the ideal to me, it’s not my reality. My emotions tend to be extreme: terror instead of insecurity, rage instead of irritation, depression instead of disappointed. I try not to let this out on other people too much while still not bottling them up; it’s difficult. How productive I am also swings between extremes, from not being able to even brush my teeth to make rapid progress on ambitious projects. I don’t like this, in part because it makes my life fairly unpredictable. I never know what responsibilities I can accept. However, try as I might, I’m not able to walk the middle path.
My response to the seasons is a visual one. I watch for changes and often revel in the beauty that is given us with each season. Perhaps, too, it affects my emotions because the soft coming of Spring, accompanied with the ferocity of storms, either then or in Summer, must affect me too. Being scared during tornado season is a usual factor for me but then out comes the sun the next day and all is well with the world, at least for me. Being visual didn’t help my friend and me this past week when we came out of a store, looking and thinking that the sidewalk was clear of freezing. Even walking slowly together wasn’t the solution; down we went! No breaks but lots of aches for a day or two. The sidewalk truly showed no signs of slickness; so there you have it; being visual doesn’t always work well.