Seasons of Surrender
By Kim Brassor
One Voice Evolving: Better You, Better World
On Aging, Waiting, and the Quiet Work of Becoming Fully Human
There are seasons in a woman’s life when the rose finally tells the truth. My year in review brings a new perspective and I'm betting it does for you too, if you take a moment to breathe it in and fully feel it.
The bloom has opened. The blossom has faded. The petals have fallen. And all that remains are the thorns, dark, sharp, forming a hedge of protection around a soul that has lived enough life to earn its defenses.
Once, those petals brought beauty and joy to the senses. Now there is only prickly pain and the honest warning: approach with caution. Lest you prick your finger and suck the blood of your very own soul. And yet, winter always brings its own kind of memory. With the first snow comes the echo of quieter times, effortless rest, solitude, stillness, comfort.
I do not know how many more winters I have in me. None of us do.
There is an urgency now, almost like the last flicker of a flame, to get it all out into the world. My voice, my truth, my breadcrumbs for whoever dares to dream beyond the dark.
Because that is who I am writing for. Not the confident creators, not those comfortably content in their illusions, but the ones who are one whisper away from giving up hope.
My hope for democracy, freedom, and justice has not died, though I no longer pretend it is guaranteed in any hierarchy. Those are simple words, but impossible systems. Still, the dream remains. Along with exhaustion born from a lifetime of rooting for the underdog, fighting to be validated, and suffocating under the weight of carrying more than my share.
The fighting is the part I am ready to set down. I have longed most of my life for a serving of apathy, not coldness. Just a moment of not feeling so much, but it does not seem to be part of my DNA. What I truly want seems simpler now: to feel peaceful, unbothered and safe.
A peace that once felt endless, but now feels like something I ache for.
I call this place God’s waiting room.
This year, the roots feel different. Dormant. Waiting. Too soon to tell whether Spring will revive them one more time. Too soon to know whether the creative spurt I poured into the world was a final burst or simply the last flicker before the next flame catches.
And while I hate the waiting, I have learned, slowly, stubbornly, to accept the divine timing that refuses to be rushed. But the hardest part is not the waiting or the uncertainty or even the long stretch of silence between seasons.
The hardest part is the enforced solitude, that housebound-in-a-blizzard feeling where there is nothing you can do but hunker down, hope your supplies last, wait for it to pass, and then walk through the aftermath to see what (and who) survived.
I am grateful for the unshakable confidence born of surviving the worst days of my life so far. It brings a sense of belonging that nobody can take away. The love and approval I thought I needed to be my best self has given way to a rock-solid knowing that I am LUCID (Loved, Understood, Cherished, Included and Desired) no matter how it looks to the outside world.
I am my own ride-or-die partner in this storm and ever grateful for the sojourners who have crossed my path to provide aid and comfort when necessary.
Where the mind goes, the body follows.
When I vividly imagine myself 30 years from now, in a rocker by the fireplace, savoring a cup of coffee with a backdrop of life altering books behind me, a lake view stretching before me through full length windows, I am at peace.
A woman who knows, finally and fully, that it all turned out okay in the end.
With love,
—Kim
Author’s Note
I write these reflections not as someone with answers, but as a woman learning, still, to listen to her own life. If my words land in you, it is because we are walking some part of the same path. May they remind you that you are not alone in the waiting, the longing, or the becoming.
