There was a gate in the back corner of my grandmother\u2019s garden. As a child, I imagined it led to magical places. As an adult, I forgot it existed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later, after a particularly hard year\u2014burnout, heartbreak, change\u2014I returned to her old home, now mine. The garden was overgrown, wild with memory and weeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then I saw it: the gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rusty, ajar, yet still there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I opened it and stepped through into a forgotten part of the garden. Trees arched over like a canopy. A chill in the air told me it was winter here\u2014quiet, bare, resting. My instinct was to fix it. To clean, prune, make it bloom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But something stopped me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This place wasn\u2019t broken. It was just in a different season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so was I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat on an old stump and felt the weight of everything I had been carrying. I realised I didn\u2019t need to push. I didn\u2019t need to bloom. Not yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like the trees, I could just be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in that stillness, I felt power\u2014not the power of doing, but the power of allowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later, I closed the gate\u2014not to lock it, but to honour it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because I would return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when I did, it would be a different season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n