The Quiet Beginning... Again

Beginning again is seldom what people imagine it will be. They expect clarity about a new life. Decisive change. Moments with dramatic movement from past to future. Simple recipes where a conversation creates a decision, and life is changed.

That’s not usually how it happens.

Most beginnings don’t announce themselves upon arrival. Beginning again is talked about in plans as if it were a dramatic single moment. It rarely is. Dramatic single moments are usually just repeat performances.

Beginning again is different. Most beginnings aren’t tidy, or loud, or linear. They arrive quietly, sometimes from multiple directions. Sometimes beginnings first watch from the sidelines, looking for the moment to enter the dance softly, discreetly, almost unnoticed at first.

Beginning again brings with it quiet observations that start to become familiar. So, we start watching for them more. We’re watching, listening, feeling. We begin to find things we ignored or pushed to the back. Yearnings, dreams, feelings of Being still quite unfinished. A space we want to fill with something else, something new, something different.

New life beginnings may seed as a thought. The one that wakes us up and keeps us up a few minutes at 3 a.m., wondering why we aren’t sleeping. It doesn’t beg a quick solution with all loose ends tied up. It provides more questions than answers. We just start to know what we’ve had no longer fits the way it used to.

We realize the need for vulnerability...and feel the tightness, knowing honesty and courage must be summoned.

But we looked. We saw it. A new way of life. And now we can’t look away. We turn toward it, ready or not. And now we can’t look back. Real beginnings are easy to overlook as they start, then become impossible to ignore. Quietly, a mark was passed where there is no going back to not seeing. This new way of seeing, it speaks with “Yes” where “No” stood before.

What are you watching, thinking, feeling? What will you turn toward? When will your new beginning begin, or has it already?