With spring’s soft, warming breeze comes the feeling in the air that we have made it through something and have come out the Other Side. And on this Other Side there are chirping birds, tight buds nearing blossom on fruit trees, sunshine beaming down on us, and a renewed sense of hope I hadn’t realized I’d lost.

Winter is hard. Even in one of the country’s mildest spots for it. The grey days, the dark mornings, the low-hanging cloud…I don’t always realize how much it gets to me until it eventually evaporates and one day I feel alive again. Like this morning, as I walked the dogs along a lakeview trail after booting the kids onto the school bus for their first day back in class after a 17 day-long Spring Break, I felt a lilt in my step that I hadn’t since the fall.

As our kids get older, winters are more and more bearable, and even hold lots of fun moments as we spend time skiing together as a family and making memories in the snow. But give me spring, and summer, and fall, because those are the times when I am most me. I get a little lost in the winter. But I am always found again, like a determined little tulip showing her face after the snow melts, back again for another season.

Here’s to spring! I hope you’re feeling alive again too!

(Top photo of Avelyn taken this weekend. Her rapidly maturing face takes my breath away as she is beginning to break away from childhood on through to the Other Side. I am not ready. I want to pause time now, before she’s all grown up. Love that girl.)