Texas

There are many, many wonderful things about Texas, and one day I plan to return and enjoy all of them. However, while I lived there, the season of my life at the time gave me a different experience. I'm sure I could have lived anywhere and had the same experiences, but they happened while I lived in Texas. I am definitely a better person from my time there. When I try to explain it, it is so BIG and COMPLEX, my brain short circuits. And, this is what I've come up with to make it make sense.

"I came to TX in the fall. My leaves were brown, burnt and falling away. Nobody knew my story. My energy was waning. It is not a good time to move, when you have little strength to handle the stresses of replanting. I didn't know why the gardner replanted me there, when he did, in the winter. It is a tough season. I was bare and vulnerable. You could see me, whole. No facade to cover me, no fruit or blossoms to beautify me. I was nothing but barren.

In TX, the winter storms changed and shaped me. Instability that comes with lack of sleep, long deployments, lawyers, court, and finally, the cruelty of well intentioned people, family. I felt alone on the longer winter nights, the bitter sting of the frozen words that felt unjust. I withdrew from the peripherals of life. It was a time for me to inventory, repair and replace, to go deep within. It was hard, it hurt, I didn't know winter would last for years. And, the gardner looked after me. In my nakedness I was clothed. I was protected from what could have been so much worse.

I creaked and groaned. I ached and finally surrendered. Is this what gives majesty to the aged, the scars of a broken limb, broken heart? The story that reveals wisdom?

With the changing of the season comes the changing of a time. I have lived through a winter, one of many I have had and will have in life. I have scars, I have aged. AND, Spring is here and I am rooted deeper and stronger. I made it and I am wiser."

Maryland is my spring.