Author Kathleen Norris in her book The Quotidian Mysteries makes a bold statement. "...it always seems that just when daily life seems most unbearable, stretching out before me like a prison sentence, when I seem most dead inside, reduced to mindlessness, bitter tears or both, that what is inmost breaks forth and I realize that what had seemed 'dead time' was actually a period of gestation."

Dead time, death,

Leading to gestation, growth.

Isn't that one of the most true things though?

Often times, in order for something new to happen, in order for something to change, another thing must vanish, die away to make room.

I don't think our lives were meant to be cluttered up with half dead pieces, clinging on for dear life just for the sake of memories...or the reality of fear.

How many times do we hold onto something that is "so-so" out of fear that if we let it go, nothing better will happen?

We let a half dead thing just hang around us, suck the life out of us become commonplace, because we've convinced ourselves (or brainwashed), with no viable evidence, that it is as good as it's going to get.

We become afraid of taking chances, and we white knuckle something that's dying, something that no longer serves us, oh so sure that in the entire, gigantic universe, there is nothing greater, nothing more promising.

And then we begin to die.

But don't we all actually want to be alive?

Don't we want to thrive?

Something that is half dead, a vice, a relationship, a habit, it may have served you for a time, and it may have served you well. It may have even been fully alive when you first latched on. In its evolution toward mundanity, it could have very well been a safe spot to visit. But something that is half dead was never meant to stay alive, even in its reduced state, forever. Eventually half dead, regardless of its origin, becomes lifeless, and it either takes you along with it or gives you the opportunity to let it go.

And when you let it go, let go of its death and dryness, you keep with you the way it served you. The dead time, in all of its dull glory, carried along with it lessons, developments in personal discovery- the half that was still connected to life. And that growth, that experience is what you take away from the dead time.

And you carry it with you,

Step by step,

Season by season,

toward the light, toward thriving.