The Winter

Life is ebb and flow. Sometimes it's high tide and you're riding the waves of whatever endeavor you have latched on to( or has latched on to you), and sometimes you're stuck in the tide pools waiting until fortune smiles and sends you into the waiting ocean of opportunity. The winters of life are hard.  This is my winter; and while I know that spring is coming eventually I can't help but have small, brief periods where I curse my lot and wish for more.
Each time I feel like this: sad, burdened, frustrated, stuck, I feel ungrateful for the blessings and gifts that I have been given. Rationally, I know that I am grateful and thankful for all I have; but I still can't help feeling guilty for my lamentations. I'm utterly human, a fatal flaw.
I spend my time searching, researching and plotting my escape. It consumes me.
Mostly because I am left here. Homemaking. Mothering. Sowing seeds that will only bear fruit years in the future. And no matter what I may wish, desire, hope, need; there is no where to go. At least not now.
Mortally tired, I drag myself through each day; plodding along, hoping for rest, and knowing none will come. Hoping for novelty, though none will come. Wishing I could be someone else with a far more interesting, more lucrative existence, but it is futile.
I must stay here and live this life I've chosen. For there is one thing I've learned, if I've learned anything about life at all: escaping pain, hardship, loneliness, powerlessness is impossible. Though there may be many ways to endure a season in life that brings pain, the only way to master it is to live through it, and eliminate the internal distraction of the human experience to foster clarity; a clarity that can only come through discipline, patience and industry. To consciously sow the seeds of success, to propagate prosperity, and to reap the rewards that are the fruit of due diligence.
The only way to spring is through the winter. So too, the only way to find success is to have the wisdom to stay the course, despite setbacks and frustration;despite the criticism and the nay sayers. Knowing that even though winter may wear out its welcome long before it ends, it will eventually end; and if I've played my cards right spring's summer will eclipse my wildest dreams.