June. For me, it’s a month of milestones. It’s a point where life has changed, more than once. And this year, it may mark a milestone for all of us.
This is my birthday month. It’s my daughter’s birthday month. In fact, we share the same birthday. It is her partner’s birthday month, too.
Many long years ago, I was a June bride.
June is the month when my mother died, an event that now, almost 20 years later, I can see marked the point where a road that I had never questioned suddenly stopped. And I was forced to face that hard stone wall in front of me and eventually find a new way forward.
Fast forward, and it is the anniversary of the date I met my partner, 14 years ago.
Two years ago in June, we arrived at this old farmhouse with the big maples in front, unloaded our boxes, looked around, and declared this would be home.
This June, we all emerged, blinking, from long weeks of isolation and anxiety, to find we have as a society reached a turning point. The way forward is no longer certain or clear.
Change is challenging. It can feel like a loss, like an ending, a death. But it is also exhilarating, the start of an adventure. Change is an opportunity to try something new, to improve. Change and fear may be acquaintances, but change and hope are dear friends.
We, as a country, as a society, as a world, have seen the worst of ourselves and we see the best of ourselves, and we, each of us, have a decision to make. We have resisted change, but change is now here. Each of us has to choose what’s next.
All we have to do is turn, and take the first step.
Read more installments of Village Voices by Susan Barnett.