Another Trip Around the Sun
5/6/20263 min read
It’s been a week since I celebrated another birthday.
Maybe you do this too whenever a new age arrives.
Without even realizing it, you begin taking a quiet inventory of your life.
What has happened. What hasn’t happened yet.
And, perhaps most of all, the things you thought would have happened by now.
When I look in the mirror, nothing has changed aesthetically (at least not yet! 😊).
I didn’t get the new haircut I had planned. Bangs suddenly felt like too much commitment for someone who's been embracing simplicity these days.
I don’t live by the beach.
I haven’t written bestselling books (yet!).
My kitchen still doesn’t overlook a beautiful garden.
Instead, I have a lovely concrete jungle outside my window.
And, interestingly enough...
those things no longer weigh on me the way they once did.
Little by little, they stopped being the place where I searched for my joy.
Perhaps you carry a similar list.
Not exactly the same.
But a list of "not yets."
Dreams postponed.
Plans that found a different destination.
Paths that never unfolded.
I think, at some point in life, everyone carries a list like that in their pocket.
And perhaps maturity isn't crossing every item off.
Perhaps it's learning that life continues to bloom while some of them remain on the list.
Inside each of us, there is a garden.
Mine. Yours.
And perhaps they are more alike than we imagine.
I've planted flowers at the wrong time.
Maybe you have too.
Some never bloomed.
Others stubbornly held on, even when everything suggested they wouldn't survive.
And there were flowers that taught me something no book ever could:
How to wait.
Not because I've become particularly good at it.
Anyone who knows me knows I still try to rush a few seasons. 😊
But the Garden has never seemed particularly interested in my impatience.
It simply keeps moving according to its own rhythm.
Perhaps that's why I love watching it.
It reminds me, over and over again, that there is a difference between living...
and rushing.
I must admit, I've learned more by observing than by speaking.
Flowers speak very softly.
Or perhaps they simply whisper.
For a long time, I thought they were silent.
Now I believe they were speaking all along.
I was simply too busy to listen.
The seasons have taught me something I'm still learning:
There is a time for everything.
A time to plant.
A time to water.
A time to prune.
A time to harvest.
A time to wait.
And perhaps the hardest part isn't understanding that.
Perhaps it's trusting.
Trusting that time is not working against us.
Trusting that delay is not the same as abandonment.
Trusting that some seeds are quietly at work long before they ever break through the surface.
There is a time to be born.
There is a time to die.
And, interestingly enough, there is always a time to celebrate.
To celebrate what bloomed.
To celebrate what didn't.
To celebrate what had to leave in order to make room for something new.
Because not everything I imagined has bloomed.
But the Garden bloomed anyway.
I think contentment is a curious flower.
It rarely appears when life finally looks the way we imagined.
It blooms when we realize the Garden was already alive while we were waiting for the next season.
Perhaps you're entering a new season too.
With dreams that haven't happened yet.
With questions that still have no answers.
With seeds that seem far too quiet.
If that's where you are...
I hope you REMAIN.
Not everything that hasn't bloomed is lost.
Some things are simply learning the right time to be born.
As for me...welcome, another trip around the sun!
There are still flowers I have yet to discover.
Seeds I have yet to see emerge.
Paths I have yet to walk.
But the Garden has already taught me enough to trust:
every season arrives exactly when it needs to.
And each one carries a beauty that can only be seen by those who choose to remain.
Text: Priscila Sotana
