As I look out my office window, I can see it: The first orange leaves have shown themselves. The trees in my purview are still 99.5 percent green, but the presence of this one orange patch lets me know what’s coming. And it’s at the perfect time because today is the first day of fall.

Fall has always been my favorite season. It’s the season in which I celebrate my birthday. For as long as I can remember, it’s the season of pumpkin-carving, apple-picking, Halloween, and flannel shirts. But as I’ve grown spiritually and chronologically, I’ve come to realize I have a different attachment to fall.

A Reminder

The abundance of my garden is about to come to an end. The air conditioner will cease to hum. The bountiful, verdant foliage will begin to die back. Fall is a reminder life is made up of cycles. As Katherine May wrote in Wintering, “We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.” And when I think about the season ahead, once the leaves have fallen and the world seems barren, the cycle will soon repeat itself. And in the fall, we get to experience the beauty of transition.

We get to appreciate the multitude of colors all around. We get to anticipate the bare bones. We get to appreciate the growth that occurred over the summer. We get to watch as the earth reminds us that transitions are beautiful, normal, and naturally occurring. We are not meant to live in stagnation. We are not meant to look, act, or feel a specific way for our entirety. We are supposed to grow. We are supposed to change. And we are supposed to transition.

Pendulum

Things may seem scary at times. Things may seem burdensome. But during those times, we have to remember they won’t last. We can’t control the world around us, but we can control the world within us.

As the leaves change colors and fall, trees don’t die. They prepare to grow again.

As we transition throughout our lives, so do we.