Painting a Vibrant Picture

When I look back at the last two years, it’s easy to see it as a tidy, linear timeline, each event leading up into the next. From leaving my job to having tumour removal surgery to becoming a mom. It’s so easy to simplify the story into chapters, but that’s not a realistic representation. Life is messy. Events overlap, collide and converge is ways that later become an integral part of your story, despite how painful they are at the time.

We’ve been trained to think of things in polarised and simplified ways. From right to wrong, left to right, love or hate, we run off the operating system that there are clear distinctions in the world around us. We forget to notice the surrounding events and simultaneously occurring moments which bring colour and complexity into our lives. Everything is happening at once, whether we have the ability to comprehend it or not.

When we stop expecting our lives to unfold in a particular trajectory (e.g. school, university, family, retirement) we give ourselves grace to navigate setbacks and unexpected events. We embrace chaos, and give space for dreams that may have been unfolding in the backdrop. Eventually our life’s picture will be greater than the sum of the individual parts that made it.

I’m reminding myself today, to enjoy the present moments and trust that there are things boiling under the surface that will make sense in due time. I’m trusting that the messy, overlapping moments of life are creating something greater than the sum of their parts.