In Between Seasons

March always feels like a beginning, but it also feels like remembering.

March has always been one of my favorite months for good reason. My birthday usually begins within days or sometimes on the day spring begins. I find myself getting excited for green grass. Warm winds. Flowers. All the flowers. I’ve stopped counting my age and instead reflecting back.

It’s odd to think that there are these moments in life, not unlike seasons, that will never be the same again. Little baby cries are a thing of the past for us. We have four kids, and there’s this feeling that hits me… when I realize my little babies have turned into full, beautiful humans. With my youngest being four, I’m just now starting to find myself again.

I was always the youngest in my family. The baby. The young sister. The one who came last and felt like she’d never quite grow up.

I don’t know if anyone else ever feels this desire to be “mothered” but I do sometimes. I had females to look up to in my immediate family who mothered me. I don’t want to turn this into something sad, but all three of them are gone, my mother and two older sisters. And now, somehow, everything has shifted. In many ways, I’m the only one left.

I went from being the youngest… to the one carrying three daughters forward.

I don’t know if I’ve fully caught up to that yet.

I think that’s why my next book is revolving around sisterhood and female relationships. Not just the femininity you’re born into, but the kind you grow into. The kind that holds you up when the world shifts. The kind that stays, even when everything else changes.

I didn’t realize how much I was writing toward that until recently. How much of what I’ve been creating is really just me trying to understand what it means to keep people close, even after they’re gone. The same way a tree grows new leaves after the others have fallen.

March always feels like a beginning, but it also feels like remembering. Like standing right in the middle of what was and what’s still to come.

Maybe that’s why I love it so much. Growth carries both beauty and sadness with it.

I watch as my children continue to grow. They’ve gone from diapers to running barefoot in the backyard, from tiny hands reaching for mine to gripping softballs and bats.

Oh and somehow my son is taller than me, in men’s clothing, and a teenager. What?

Time moves in these swift, almost unnoticeable shifts until one day you look up and realize everything has changed.

Maybe that’s what March is.

Not just a beginning, but a reminder that we’re always becoming something new, even as we carry what came before.

Lately, I’ve been in a similar season with my writing as well.

Sending pieces of something I poured myself into out there in the world and just… waiting. Trying not to refresh my inbox too often. Trying to trust that what’s meant to grow will. Trying to maintain that delusional optimism that everyone is talking about, even on the days it feels a little impossible.

I’ll be honest. Querying is tough.

It’s vulnerable in a way I didn’t fully expect. The odds are sooooo small.

But I keep coming back to this feeling. The same one March brings.

That just because you can’t see the growth yet, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. There’s so much held inside such a small word as hope. And within it, there’s the power to keep going. Just like a seed that’s been waiting beneath frozen ground, finding its way through the in-between.

Even in the moments when giving up feels closer.

Life, seasons, loss, hope, perseverance.
It all intertwines.
And isn’t that the point of it all?

If we stop daring to dream, what are we growing toward?

With Love,

Jessica