11/09/2022: Fall
I always love fall, even more now that I’m older. It just feels like a beautiful and metaphorical season of life in so many ways. With fall comes indescribable beauty, in the crisp fresh air and the changing colors of the leaves; who knew that something dying could be so beautiful. The world is breathing its last breaths of spring and summer, the seasons of life, in preparation for death and hibernation, fading into the dark cold winter. There is so much beauty in the mundane and the tragic; even in death and hard times, the dark seasons of our lives, we are learning and growing through our low times and even our grief.
I’m going through another season, or transformation, in my life and it just so happens to be at the same time the world is going through its darkest hours. There are parts of an old version of myself that are falling away, slowly fading and dying like the colorful leaves outside. But I know that after the winter I will happily face the spring.
I’m learning about who I am, truly, for the first time in my life. And as beautiful as this has been, it has also been difficult, and at times very lonely. Most of the world will never understand the things I’m going through, will never open their eyes to their potential for greatness and betterment, and that is a tragedy in itself. It is also a tragedy to have to accept certain things and to let people go whom you love so dearly. I’ve learned that the only thing that matters is being my best self, for myself and myself alone. If this means I have to let certain things, and people, go, then I have to learn to accept this.
This is the beauty and the tragedy about being alive and being human. I can only continue striving to better myself and how I treat myself and carry myself. People come and go like the leaves in the fall, but I must accept the hard truth that this is just the way of the world. There is a season for love and life, but there is also a season for death and loss. This can mean a death of an old version of yourself that you no longer wish to be, an ending of a friendship or realizing that you have to let people go so you can learn to love yourself before you open yourself up to others again, hoping that those people you believed in will learn to do the same and your paths may cross again in the future; it can simply mean death and loss as well.
In this season of change and growth, I choose to find the beauty within these events. And I hope to survive the darkness and silence of the cold winter so I can emerge in the spring, renewed and hopeful for the future once more. Fall is truly beautiful. In death, even then, it is the most beautiful season. For from death and loss the world can be reborn with a newfound life and hope for tomorrow. I will survive my fall and the winter as well, and I will look forward to the spring.
My time will come. And so will everyone else’s. I wish them all well and hope they know how much they are loved, even if I can’t be present in their lives to tell them this and help them reach their true potential. I hope they know that after fall and winter, spring will come, and a new and promising season of life will begin for them. No matter how long the darkest seasons in life seem to be, spring will always come.