From A Candle

Let It All Burn To The Ground

No, don’t let it all burn to the ground. Then you would be left with nothing but grief and nothing to start from. Change comes slowly and from using what you already have.

I had a brilliant idea as I was falling asleep for a blog post, but of course I didn’t write it down or type it up, so poof it went! I needed some time by myself (which isn’t that difficult since I’m alone when my husband goes to work in the mornings as I’m searching for a job). I made it my self-care today to stare into a candle for five minutes and put on some music, hoping that would rejuvenate me. I was also hoping it would inspire me to write a post. I’ve been holding off on what I’ve been learning in Partial until after the New Year, making way this past week for change and hope and New Year stuff, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I felt like Christmas just went awry in my attempts at changing others. And I shouldn’t have been seeking to change others in the first place.

So I’m sitting next to the flame watching it, trying to glean some ancient wisdom but also letting my mind wander. (I was silently begging God for the next blog post, let’s be real.) 

What I’ve been trying to say in blog post after blog post the past week or so hit me again in the form of the flame. One of my favorite things about fire is watching it dance around. And you know why? It’s constantly changing. It never once goes back to its original form. Watch it make almost the same shape a hundred times, but it’s like a fluid in the air, it never fills the same shape twice. 

We can be like the fire, constantly changing, constantly evolving, ever dancing. We can help other people find the sparks to re-ignite their passions and dance again without turning into Savior Complexes. Fire doesn’t stroke its ego when it makes more fire, it just shoots off sparks in jubilation! And best of all, we don’t beat up fire for ever being in the wrong shape as it dances skyward. It just changes and changes and changes. It learns from mistakes and keeps what it likes and becomes something new. If we were who we were meant to be as young adults, why turn into older adults? Heck, I’m constantly learning what I did was wrong and constantly apologizing, but I’m tired of making guilt into my identity as I was taught.

I think as open-minded as we think we are, 2025 is the year we pledge to open our minds just a crack more. Let’s let other people teach us what we don’t know. I learned just a tiny bit that I don’t know what I don’t know in one specific area, and it blew my mind! And that’s an area that I thought I knew a little bit about!!! So perhaps it’s time to take our “expert caps” off for five minutes, and maybe learn from a candle every once in a while. Or a Facebook reel that makes you realize you should get tested for adult Autism (which I will be getting shortly), or any number of things.

Learn from the viewpoint of a child, because you probably don’t have the answers to all their questions, nor should you. There’s a reason we don’t know everything. You don’t have to learn it all. But find a passion and let it guide you down a cute little rabbit hole of information so you can help educate others on that subject if it comes up. Or make it your entire personality or whatever. Hahaha!