The Beginning of Everything

The age of busy has never been more prevalent than the past few weeks. It is not that I have been ‘too busy’ or that things have been cast aside for other matters. Instead, I have experienced other people in the sea of their own preoccupation. I have been witness to the inattention, the complaint, the overwhelm that consumes us all at this time of year.

Photo used by permission by Andreas Psaltis/Unsplash

As an expat who has lived in Germany for nearly two decades, I brace myself anew, come the end of November, for the cultural indifference that Thanksgiving brings when I try to celebrate the holiest of family moments with nary a family member in sight. Reaching out via WhatsApp seems inadequate and although I try to bridge the difference of time and space, I am often left with a vacuous state of aloneness.

That feeling of isolation is intensified by virtual team members who ignore my pleas to meet deadlines, to review time-sensitive materials or to gather a sense of like-mindedness amidst the din of their own importance.

I am angered by the silence, by the disinterest, by the blinded spirit of others’ wants without concern for my own. It is a troubled moment in time, which my Feng Shui consultant has told me comes annually, at the end of the calendar year. It is a span of time in which detritus must make way for new things and as I attempt to match my intellect with my despairing heart, I stretch my willingness for compassion and empathy when what I truly yearn for is a listening ear.

It is a sensitive time, a time of vulnerability and spanned heartbreak. A time of reflection for what is yet to come. And as the ebb and flow of life washes over me like the tides, I am reminded that exactly this state of being is just the beginning. In fact, it is the beginning of everything yet unseen.

 

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