I am reading a book. Well, I am reading many books. Most of them just simple novels that I fly through in a few days (I love “paranormal cozy detectives” and luckily my ereader subsciption has a big supply of those). But this book, I’m just reading slowly, one chapter at a time. I’m not going to tell you what book it is, because that would kind of force me to write a whole lot of words about what I think of it and frankly, I’m not sure at all if I like it or not.

But in one of the very first chapters, the writer mentioned that we live our lives in cycles. Not just our hormonal cycles, but in many, many ways, far beyond that. She then proceeds to compare those cycles to the moon cycles and the seasons. I can relate to moon cycles, but I really don’t like that most books with nature based philosophies assume everyone lives in a region with real, distinctive seasons – I never did and a lot of of us don’t. But I digress.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. You know, I have this image in my mind of how (or who?) I’d like to be. And sometimes I am that woman. But other times, I’m not. I always blamed myself for not being consistent, for “falling off the bandwagon”. But life is not static. We move in circles. Or ideally in an upward spiral, evolving and growing each time we go around, but I guess it takes a lifetime to really see that growth.

But the point is, it’s not wrong to have ups and downs, it’s part of the cycle. Like dark moons and full moons, like ebb and flow, and – okay – like winter and summer.

So now I’m trying to accept that, and I’m striving to understand my cycles. In all aspects of life.

Energy levels for instance. That’s a big one for me. I have very active days, but they are always followed by days of exhaustion. People tell me all the time that I should spread my activity, but that just doesn’t work. Or they just think I’m exaggerating my being tired, because the other day I was fully capable of doing so much.
And then I feel frustrated being so “weak”. But since I’m trying to incoorporated this idea of cycles in my life, I am slowly learning to accept that I have these tired days (sometimes weeks). Because now I have hope. The active days will come again.

Herbs are a big part of my life, but sometimes I’m almost obsessed with studying and using them, and other times I’m just drinking my chamomile tea and leave it at that. And it’s the same with my other interests and hobbies; knitting, sewing, writing, reading, gardening, photography… I always feel like I should stick with one thing and immerse myself in it every single day. But my interests come and go, and come again. I’m not inconsistent, I’m just moving in cycles.

This way of thinking actually helps me to understand myself better. And more importantly: to finally accept myself for who I am.

And that’s why I’m sharing this. Because maybe you need to hear it too. It’s normal to have lesser days. You can’t always be a full moon, high water, or a summer. Sometimes you need to take a step back. And that’s okay. Time will turn and good days will come again.