This too shall pass — the alpine weather of life
Over the past year I’ve spent a lot of time in alpine terrain, mainly in New Zealand’s Southern Alps and Patagonia’s Andes mountains. Down there, in the far south of our planet, the weather is never predictable. A perfect sunny day can be smacked with zero visibility and hail before you have a chance to even see it coming.
Well, turns out the weather of life isn’t too different.
Sure, we have our seasons of sunny summers and dark winters, our periods of radiant bliss and hollow anguish. But like the lands in the south, you never know when you’ll be greeted with 70s and clear skies in the middle of winter or an ominous, cancerous, storm cloud in the middle of summer.
The weather is always changing.
So let’s talk about those storm clouds a bit more.
When I was living out of a car in New Zealand, my only real stresses were where to go to 🚽 (yes there are stories… 🙄😳) and the weather.
I did everything I could to predict the weather and plan around it so I could enjoy the lands in sunshine. When crappy weather came knocking unexpectedly, I was frustrated and angry, at Mother Nature and at myself for not having planned differently.
But then I started to notice… that sometimes the valleys were actually more beautiful when draped with dreary grey clouds. You could feel the depth of their distance as you saw, literally, the fifty shades of grey on the mountains.
I began to let go of plans and learn from nature’s unpredictability — to see the beauty in the storm, its force upon our small existence, and the impermanence of it all.
Having returned from my year of travel in October, I was excited to put some roots down and create a life around my values and passions.
I had a vision, but with others’ sage advice and my newly strengthened intuition, I knew I couldn’t over plan. I needed to have faith I would find the right answers eventually.
I wouldn’t know till recently just how necessary it was to let go of long term planning given nature’s certain unpredictability.
Random opportunities started falling into my lap and the next thing I know I’m on a flight to Vietnam. The flowers of my springtime just barely started blossoming and the next thing I know I’m in the middle of hemorrhaging rain, sleet, gale force winds and lightening fury.
I’m angry and broken, but the storm is here, and there’s no changing it. Even if there is no beauty to appreciate, I can choose to fear it or I can choose to learn from it.
I can choose to let it destroy me or I can choose to stand strong until it passes, even if my body aches all over from standing for damn so long.
The weather is unpredictable but it is always changing.
