When You Can’t Move Forward Yet

It has been raining since the beginning of the year.

The kind of rain that, once it arrives, just stays for days. Grey sky, heavy air, soil turning into ankle-deep mud.

This was my January in the last years

In other years, by this time, my garden beds were already cleaned and prepared. The first rhubarb ready for harvest. Small flowers pushing their way through the cold ground.

This year, almost nothing.

The soil is too wet to touch. Too messy to pretend that anything useful can be done.

And I feel it in my body - impatience, tension, this almost claustrophobic need to get outside and start something.

I check the weather forecast.

More rain. More wind. No real change for at least another week. Probably two.

I close the tab and decide not to look again.

There is no point in arguing with something I cannot influence.

I don’t like it but it doesn’t change anything.

So instead of standing at the window calculating how long this will last, feeling increasingly frustrated with every new punch of wind, I turn my attention indoors.

I clear and rearrange the sunroom. Make it possible to sit there even when the wind presses against the glass.

I clean the balcony and plant the first spring flowers so there is a splash of color when I look through the window.

I start testing a new hobby. Reading more slowly. Planning, but without urgency.

Browsing seed catalogues, resisting the urge to plant too early.

Instead of forcing the outside to change, I adjust the inside.

This doesn’t make winter disappear.

It doesn’t make me suddenly love grey days.

But it softens the resistance.

There is snow in Poland and minus fifteen degrees. Nothing can be done there either.

So this is the season I have.

I can spend it checking forecasts and feeling stuck.

Or I can use it differently.

Planning quietly. Preparing gently. Letting ideas form before the soil is ready.

Yes, I wish it were spring. But it isn’t.

And I don’t want to waste these weeks in frustration.

Waiting can be empty.

Or it can be meaningful.

In an era when time feels so precious, I choose to use it fully.