Beginnings

"Beginnings are scary.
Endings are usually sad.
But it's the middle that counts the most.
You need to remember that when
You are at a beginning—
Just give hope a chance to float up."

--From 'Hope Floats'

The leaves on all the trees have reached the tender new baby green stage. Across the sky and silhouetted against the blue of the lake, their color is bright and shiny. By July they will be a languid dark green, weighted down by the intensity of summer's hot sunlight. But for now, they are a marvel of overnight growth and a welcome sight after months of bare gray branches.

Starting out is its own experience. There are opportunities for all kinds of first days. Starting a new job or finding oneself without one; coming home with a new baby or the quiet after packing that same child off to college; waking up after surgery or from the grip of a destructive lifestyle. Everyone has their own list and for most all of us, facing a change in our lives that is different from our norm can easily fill us with anxiety and apprehension. We get so focused on the negative voices we forget to see that mixed in with all the emotions rolling through us, there is also excitement and hopefulness created by what we are facing.

Lime green new leaves do not have voices to contend with and you can bet they don't have mortgages or retirement to think about either. What they do comes naturally to them even though the summer may bring drought, they may be eaten or infested or cut down for a subdivision and come fall will certainly be shed in anticipation of next year's batch. Of course we are not leaves, but that same natural instinct to grow and change exists in us just the same. Maybe we didn't arrive where we are by a choice we thought of as our own, but here we are anyway, back at another beginning. That's probably a good time to remember all these bright green leaves and consider what they do. Latch on to all the possible instead of impossible. Follow our excitement and instincts in selecting which direction we will grow towards. The leaves are seeking the warm summer sun. That sounds like a good plan. What in us desires the light of day as well? What calls to us despite all the new jitters and anxieties and worries we are feeling? What paths beckon even though they also ask us to risk? But most of all, remember what is most often overlooked in the scariness of beginnings. As soon as you start out, take that first step to whatever it is, the beginning is over and you are the on your way to the middle. The place where you fall into the rhythm of what is at hand. The place where all that you hoped for, can have the chance to come true. The place where you are no longer at the beginning, but on your way.