Since my last blog our city has become draped in a haze of purple! Parks are blanketed with lavender. Streets are lined with this same hue. The jacarandas are in bloom.

Jacarandas are embedded in my earliest memories. As a small child I used to pick the blossoms off the ground, thinking that they looked just like a tiny bird with delicate purple wings. Later, I used to play under the shade of the jacarandas that graced our school grounds. Then, as a university undergrad, my friends and I would tease each other about how it was too late to study for final exams if the jacarandas were in bloom.

Now I look across my purple patchwork city and know that Christmas is near and the year is drawing to close. And guess what? Next year at the same time these flowers will come, just the same. The jacarandas are a measure of the season.

Life can be measured in this way. Years come and go, but just like the jacarandas, the seasons come again. Opportunity is a little like that.

Have you ever felt you’ve missed it – blown a chance beyond repair?

The scale of such ‘blowings’ can span the mundane to the extraordinary. Yet, just like the purple canopy that colours my city right now, opportunities will return.

Impossible? Granted, new opportunities may not look quite the same as the old; they may not have the same outcomes as previous offerings, but they will come. In light of this, opportunities should not be treated with contempt. Each holds its own potential. Yet, just as life moves forward, so must we.

There’s no point keeping jacaranda blossoms from a previous season. They grow brown and shrivelled; a fragile shell of what they once were. Just the same, if we miss an opportunity and stay in that moment, beating ourselves up about it time and again, we too will grow colourless and fragile. We may even be less inclined to grasp those future opportunities – or even recognise them when they come.

There’s no denying that missing some opportunities can bring deep pain, even an irreplaceable loss, but if you feel like you’ve stopped at such a place, let yourself feel the warm breeze of spring and the newness of life it represents. In time, the beautiful colours of the seasons will fill your world and the purple of the jacarandas will eventually hail the nearing of a New Year – a fresh start for new dreams and new opportunities.