POETRY & ACADEMIA
Life as Seasons Rather Than Chapters
A poem of reflection
If you think about life as a book, each phase becomes a chapter, moving along, moving forward.
Chapter 13, our protagonist chased numbers: number of Facebook friends, number on the scale, percentage marks.
Skip ahead —
Chapter 17, her life was about filling up a curriculum vitae. Instead of hobbies, she had extra-curriculars. She slept not to rest but to consolidate her study material.
Chapter 22, she found herself chasing predetermined milestones. BSc done? MSc, PhD, here we go!
When you think of life as a linear process of achieving “expected goals”, you find yourself lost when the arbitrary structure is gone.
In seasons you might find there is a power behind the familiarity behind the cycle as core themes return, and you can witness growth.
In this season of her life, she sees cycles in her growth.
The Spring of a habit might be new and exciting but also tough and enduring.
In the Autumn of routine she might find that it no longer fits, but understands that revisiting and knowing that growth is okay, as is changing her mind.
Yet Spring will cycle back. A previously abandoned idea resting in hibernation may return, grow and blossom with a second chance.
Seasons of routines wax and wane no different from the moon, grow and die as the seasons warm and cool.
Thank you to Aimée Gramblin and Shanna Loga for housing this piece in Age of Empathy! The prompt for this piece was:
Write about the season of your life. What have you learned to take into this season? What are you learning now? What memories do you cherish? Turn this reflection into an essay, poem, or work of fiction.
Lucy (The Eggcademic) is shifting away from the linear, uphill battle of achievements and shifting towards experimenting with how routines foster habits and regular reflections on growth. At every chapter of her life, she attempted to meet externally determined goals of what you should achieve after elementary school (Chapter 13), high school (Chapter 17) and undergrad (Chapter 22). After that, she started counting in seasons, revisiting her earlier hobbies and reflecting on what fit and what didn’t within her life. It’s been so relieving. She has also written poems about racism, simplicity and growth.
