Waiting for the beauty

Stop for a minute and think of the things in life that you find truly beautiful.

*think time*

Here's my list (I'll keep it short)

1. Bright green lawns after a rainstorm
2. Rainbows
3. Blooming flowers
4. Autumn leaves on the trees
5. Genuine, authentic smiles and laughs
6. Birds chirping

There, six is enough for now. Those are just some of the things in this world that I find truly beautiful. Now, for the real point of this blog. What is the one commonality between all six of the the items on my list? Drum roll please: there is a period of waiting before the beauty comes forth! Let me break this down and explain it a little bit better, in case you aren't picking up on what I'm saying right away.

1. When it hasn't rained for awhile, lawns are one of two colors; really dull green, or brown. Not lawns that I would consider attractive. But then, we get a little bit of rain, and they brighten right up.
2. Rainbows only appear after a storm. Common sense people.
3. When flower first get planted, you stare at a big brown spot of dirt for awhile. Then you get some tiny little green things that pop up, and finally you get the big, beautiful, colorful flowers that you were hoping for the whole time.
4. Fall is my favorite season, because I love seeing red, orange, and yellow leaves on the trees and falling down on the lawns and sidewalks and streets. But I have to spend a long time staring at either bare branches or green leaves before I get to see the pretty colors.
5. To really see someone's genuine, authentic smile and laughter, I feel like you have to have a close-ish relationship with that person. And that takes work. And waiting.
6. One of my favorite sounds of springtime is hearing the birds chirp. But that sound comes after a long quiet winter of no birds.

See what I mean? All those things that I consider to be so beautiful have some period of waiting, and in some cases a period of unattractiveness (I don't think that's an actual word but I'm going to use it anyway) before the parts that I consider to be so beautiful burst forth. But when the beauty does show up, the waiting period, the unattractive period isn't a huge deal AT ALL, because I'm finally getting to see and experience the part that truly matters to me.

I've had a rough couple of days. To be really honest about it, I've had a rough year, and I've been struggling a lot with the fact that I'm still struggling with the things that I'm going through (but that's a post, or several, for another day.) My point is: I'm more than ready to get to a point where I "find the beauty," for lack of anything better to say. But, like I just proved above, sometimes we have to wait awhile, and go through a period of serious unattractiveness before the beauty shows up. I've been waiting a long time, almost a year now. And there are more days that not during this struggle that I haven't liked who I've become, I don't like the things that I think and do because of how my heart is feeling, and I don't like what it's done to some of the relationships that mean so very much to me. But after I cry to let out the stress (did you know that crying burns 1.4 calories per minute?) and get some sleep, I always find myself taking a step back and thinking about how this whole experience is going to better me as an individual, a friend, a daughter, and a person in general. I know that things are going to get better, because sometimes you have to wait awhile before you see the things that are truly beautiful. And when that beauty does finally show up, the waiting period won't seem like nearly as big of a deal as it seems to be now.