Let The Season Change You

Fall in Northern Michigan

Oh fall. The season of changing colors, cooling temps, and pumpkin…everything, let’s be real. I love it. I might even be so bold to say it’s my favorite season. It doesn’t last long, but boy is it special.

Every fall, amidst the spiced lattes and finding it harder to get up in the morning because it’s completely dark out at 7 am, I find myself in a weird limbo state. Like a “hold up, is winter acccttuuaallyyy coming?” And a “wait, it’s October already? Where in the heck did 2018 (or any other year) go?” There’s always this sense of urgency realizing you have merely DAYS before the snow starts to fall and reflecting back on what you even accomplished this year. New Year’s resolutions say what?

This limbo state is a blah feeling, it’s a rushed feeling. It's a not quite the end of the year but too late to start something new feeling. A I need to get stuff done but really I just want to stay inside and cuddle feeling. It's already looking forward to winter because fall is so short. It’s an anticipation of what is going to be and not what is.

See for me, I tend to rush through the fall season and it’s kind of like when I rush through seasons of my life. You know those seasons that are hard or crummy or blah or confusing or downright awful? Those seasons I’m constantly trying to get out of, constantly looking forward to the next thing. When I say “yeah this is great but I can’t wait until…..”. You know those seasons?

Maybe it’s that you’re lost. Or hate your job. Or your relationship. Or you just got out of a relationship. Or you graduate soon and have no idea what to do. Or school is hard. Or you’re not sure what to do with your business. Or you’ve been stuck. Or going 100 miles an hour. Whatever it is, we all have those seasons. And we constantly hear “you’ll get through this” or “this too shall pass” or “time heals everything”. And while this is true, I don’t want to forget about the now, because I think we can learn something from it.

I had a friend talk about this a while ago and she hit it on the head for me. I was struggling. Scott and I were making some big changes in our business and it was frustrating. I couldn’t see everything clearly. I wasn’t sure what it looked like or how we’d make money. It was going to require a different routine and schedule and focus and just some big changes that were exciting but, well, big changes. I was stressed and straight up crabby. You could often find me saying "we just have to get through this". I kept trying to focus on the future and forget about the now.

I watched my friend’s Instagram story and she was talking about the seasons of life and living in them, not just living through them. Even when they’re hard. About showing up. About her own hard season and how she just kept trying to survive and get past it but she realized she was missing something important. She mentioned how she realized God was putting her in that place to learn from it, to grow, to cry, to feel, to sweat, to be tired, to love, to grieve, and to do all the things but by her constantly trying to get out of it she was missing those lessons.

We’re so often just trying to get through something that we’re not changed by it. We blow right by it. For me, I was waiting for what’s next. I was so frustrated with the struggle of now that I was ignoring the important lessons I was supposed to be learning. I wasn’t embracing the challenges. Most days I was looking forward to the next day. Because I knew I was going to get out of the blah season, it was just a matter of time. When I heard my friend's story, I realized it'd be a shame to go through this season not having been changed by it. I realized that I was needing to go through this season anyway so why wasn't I taking advantage of where I was. Why wasn't I learning or growing or diving deeper. I was just waiting for the time to pass and the blah to go away. And when it did go away, what a shame it would have been to not learn something from it. At that point I changed my perspective from "we just have to get through this" to "hey, you know what, we're going through this anyway, let's make sure we actually live through it."

And so, as I sit here and the wind is blowing and the leaves are all too quickly falling off the trees, I won’t let this season pass as another season. I won’t look (too) far ahead to winter. I’ll enjoy the sunshine. And the sweaters. And the colors. And this beautiful season that will be gone too soon. I’ll embrace the right now while looking forward to the future. I’ll give fall the recognition it deserves and know there’s something to learn even in this short time. I won’t wait for the season to change, I’ll be changed by the season.

Happy fall y’all.

Steph