Crooked Cedar Collective

This is the first full day of Fall.
I love Fall. It’s my favourite time to visit up north and see the beauty that comes with change, with death, and rebirth, and most of all, with creation.

I have been going through some major seasons of change, and reflecting on it, I believe that there are two kinds. (I’m sure that you could argue more, and I haven’t researched this. This is pure introspection)

1. Intentional
2. Unintentional

In the past I have seen seasons of change come, or I have let them hit me, and I’ve watched it happen. Change happened when it *needed* to. It happened because I couldn’t stand it anymore and I was frustrated and I was low. I had no idea what I wanted, I just knew it wasn’t this!

That is a scary place to be in.

Now, I was and continue to be extremely blessed, and in each season of change I have been carried. Those footprints in the sand continue to walk beside me, holding me when necessary and redirecting me with grace and love. Grace is a beautiful thing, if you allow yourself to recognize it. And I believe that for everyone.

You have the option of grace. You just have to choose it. (And that might have to be a topic for later 😏)

These unintentional seasons of grace were something that I always welcomed with gratitude. In my mind. But, now, looking back on them, I didn’t actually welcome them. That passive acceptance and gratitude was quick and flighty. Here today, gone tomorrow. Sure there were my *wake up* moments where I would pause, realize where I was, and throw up a quick, “Wow! Thank you!”, but I wasn’t showing it.
It was lip service.
It felt necessary.
I had those moments, and just as quickly as they arrived, they disappeared and I continued on with my to do lists, and losing myself. I lost myself everyday. And looking back, it is something that hurts me. I’m sorry for it. I realize that those seasons had so much more potential than I gave them. I didn’t chase them, I watched them happen.
Instead of being the author of them, they were written for me, and consequently, they were gone before I knew it.

The past few years have been transformative for me.

As a teenager, and young adult, I treated life very much the same. Watching these seasons happening to me. I didn’t experience a *rebellious* stage because I was too passive. I didn’t find myself because I thought that quiet, uninterested person was just who I was! And for that I am sorry, sorry for the people that I hurt in the process. Because I know that there were many.
I didn’t hurt them on purpose, but I hurt them through my inaction, my indifference.

The transformation that I experienced was me finally wanting to *own* me. Not just ask the question “Who am I?” over and over again without finding the answers, but to start being me! I had the rebellion, I became more forceful, I stood up for myself. Something that I never valued me enough to do.

So here I am.

I’ve shared some of the changes that I am choosing on social media, and it feels like a lot. A new life. I have strived for so much over the past few months. Things that would have sent me into a downward spiral a few years ago – not because they’re depressing – because I wouldn’t have had time to recover from letting these changes happen *to* me.

I would’ve numbed with TV and movies, claiming that I needed a break from reality because it was too much, and immersed myself into the fake ones that had been created for consumption. But I wasn’t owning it! It was too much because I wasn’t taking authorship of it, or agency of it. They were happening to me, not for me.

So today. I am choosing intentional change. I know the newness, I own it. I am writing it! It is my friend.

I am letting go of being numb and chasing my dreams.

I am choosing the people around me, the actions that I do, the future that I want to create, and I am not looking back. Because this feels too damn good. 

I know what needs to stay and what needs to go. Because I was that person – the person that claimed that I had no time for the things that I wanted in life, but then I would sit on the couch and settle for more episodes of the same tv show that I had watched a million times before, or lose myself in a new one.

These lives seemed so interesting. They were always moving from one exciting thing to the next. The drama, the opportunities, it all seemed to hit them at a pace that was addicting. Watching them fail, and then later succeed, and I was jealous. Of these fictional characters.

But then I had a realization. The successful people on TV weren’t sitting down and watching TV.

BAM. Probably one of the only things I can thank TV for, haha.

So, instead of constantly telling myself I have no time for these new things, I’m prioritizing my time. I’m using the love of my dreams to recharge me instead of numbness.

A little aside – I am not condemning TV and movies – their intentional use has a time and place, just like many other things. But I was addicted. I was mistreating it. It was my excuse.

SO – all that to say, that in this beautiful season of change, I am choosing change. I’m not letting it hit me and pass me by.
It is planned.
It is methodical.
AND, it includes saving time for the people in my life – instead of me choosing to believe the narrative of it all being so draining. I am using all of my time to be uplifting. And I am choosing my life and my surroundings to embody that.

I believe that you can too. It isn’t easy. Recognizing these parts of yourself sucks. It’s hard, and it hurts. But I promise you, what is waiting on the other side is sooooo worth it.

I love you, and I hope that my rawness inspires a little piece of change in your life.