Dear Void,
The feeling of new is in the air. Not certainty. Not abundance. Not even happiness exactly.
Hope. A whiff of it. And relief.
Perhaps relief most of all.
The feeling that some constraints have finally been lifted. The feeling of stepping outside after being indoors too long and discovering the air is fresh. Sweet. Different somehow.
The kind carried on a breeze that lingers a little longer than winter. The kind that appears when the earth begins to soften and something ancient inside us remembers that growth is possible.
Many of our ancestors celebrated this season as the beginning of the year. Not January, with its cold promises and resolutions, but spring. The return of light. The return of food. The return of possibility.
I love that image.
I imagine people watching the first green shoots emerge from the ground after a long winter. I imagine relief so profound it felt sacred. Imagine being hungry and discovering that the earth could feed you. Imagine learning to grow potatoes and realizing you might survive another year.
Now that is a reason to celebrate. Perhaps that is why this season feels so meaningful to me. I, too, am beginning something.
My husband and I are preparing to move into our first house together. A real house. A place that will hold our mornings and evenings, our laughter and our silence, our ordinary Tuesdays and future celebrations.
It is beautiful.
It is also exhausting.
There are boxes and budgets and paperwork and decisions. There are endless small tasks that somehow become large ones. The practical work of building a life. And yet, beneath all the modern inconveniences, I suspect something much older is happening.
Sometimes I imagine us in another age. The same consciousnesses, perhaps. Different bodies.
We have found shelter.
I imagine myself standing inside it for the first time, holding my breath as I look around.
Grateful.
Hopeful.
A little nervous.
The walls are standing. The roof is overhead. The immediate danger has passed. And yet there is still uncertainty ahead.
Will the crops grow?
Will the winter be kind?
Will the roof hold?
I imagine that every home humanity has ever built contained some version of those questions. Perhaps that is why homes mean so much. They are acts of faith disguised as structures.
A declaration that tomorrow is worth preparing for.
Going back to 1995, I think I was around sixteen. There were so many versions of that girl.
One of them was completely convinced she could live in a shed.
Or a garage.
Or some forgotten little structure tucked away from the world.
“I’ll fix this up and live here.” That was the entire plan. My mother would point out practical concerns.
“There isn’t a bathroom.”
I remained unconvinced that this was a serious obstacle.
“I think I can work with that.”
The details felt negotiable. The dream did not.
Looking back, I understand something I couldn’t have explained then.
The shed was never the point.
What I wanted was a place to call my own.
Any place.
A place where I was in charge of the schedule. A place where I could think my own thoughts without interruption.
A place where no one was observing me. A place where I could disappear into myself for a while and emerge unchanged.
Seclusion.
Freedom.
A small corner of the world that belonged entirely to me.
At sixteen, I thought I was dreaming about a building. What I was actually dreaming about was autonomy.
At sixteen, I thought love was a goal.
Find a partner.
Build a home.
Create a family.
Survive.
There was an order to it. A checklist of sorts. A destination waiting somewhere beyond the horizon. Love was something to achieve. Something that would finally make life feel settled. Complete. Looking back, I understand why.
When you’re young, it is easy to imagine that another person will become the answer to questions you haven’t learned to ask yet. Now I see it differently.
Love isn’t a finish line. It isn’t a role. It isn’t a collection of chores, schedules, obligations, or expectations carefully divided between two people.
At least not the important part. The important part is far simpler.
A partner is another soul moving through life alongside your own.
Not carrying you.
Not completing you.
Not saving you.
Simply walking beside you.
Two separate lives.
Two separate consciousnesses.
Choosing, day after day, to share a portion of the journey.
There is something beautiful about that. Not because it is dramatic. Because it is ordinary. Because on an average Tuesday, someone else is witnessing your existence and saying,
“I’m glad you’re here.”
And perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts we can offer another human being.
If I could tell that sixteen-year-old girl one thing, it wouldn’t be advice. She wouldn’t listen anyway. I know her. It would simply be a truth that took years to learn.
Girl,
Life is so much sweeter when you stop trying to control it and simply rest inside of it.
Not because everything works out.
Not because suffering disappears.
Not because uncertainty suddenly becomes comfortable.
But because life was never something to conquer.
It was always something to experience.
The people.
The seasons.
The mistakes.
The love.
The grief.
The ordinary Tuesday afternoons.
The porch you haven’t sat on yet.
The home you haven’t moved into yet.
The version of yourself you haven’t become yet.
None of it can be forced.
None of it can be perfectly planned.
And thank goodness for that.
Because some of the most beautiful parts of my life are things I never would have imagined for myself. This is not at all the life I thought I would have.
And somehow it became everything I actually wanted.
Perhaps that is the real miracle. Not getting what we planned.
Receiving what we needed.
Tonight, the air smells sweet.
The season is changing.
The boxes are packed.
The future is waiting across the sky.
And for the first time in a very long time, I am not rushing toward it.
I am simply resting here.
Feeling the wind.
Feeling my breath.
Embracing my place in the natural world. Not above it. Not apart from it.
A small creature beneath a vast sky. Alive during this brief and beautiful season.
And that is enough.
Love,
Elle 🌿
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