Fall is my favorite season. Or at least it always has been. I’m experiencing my first Fall in New England this year and I was surprised to find that while all the essential elements are there—breathtaking color, crisp mornings and warm afternoons, and occasional whiffs of woodsmoke—the internal response within me is not the same. Usually, on the first day that truly feels like fall I feel an abrupt internal shift to nostalgia and sentimentality. I start remembering beautiful moments from my life and love settling into a deep seated feeling of contentment.

As the morning temperature started to dip this year, I waited for that response. The leaves started to change, and I waited. I walked past my neighbor’s house with smoke curling from their chimney and I waited. I took a walk through the breathtaking beauty on an absolutely picture perfect fall day and asked myself again why this Fall feels so different.

I am very far from where I have lived before. There is a definite difference between Fall in Arkansas and Fall in Massachusetts. The timing is a bit off-sync. We are nearing the end of leaf season here and AR is definitely still in peak color. There seems to be more humidity in the air here, which means both the cold mornings and the slightly warm afternoons actually feel different to my skin. And then of course, there are no familiar landmarks here to help cue my nostalgia. Everything here is new and different.

But while I admit that these outward elements do have a part to play, there is an essential internal difference within myself as well. I’m still reflecting, just as I do every fall, but I’m reflecting differently. Whereas before my focus was mostly on thankfulness for life experiences and a certain longing to relive those moments, my mind seems to want to look back with more of a critical eye now. 

I know that probably sounds negative, but it actually doesn’t feel negative right now, just different. I’m noticing not just what I’ve experienced and enjoyed, but those things that I didn’t experience that I wish I had. I have no intention to detract from the many wonderful memories I have, but as I move into middle age I am finding my internal urge is less about contentment in nostalgia but rather about intentionally determining the direction of my life. I am realizing that all those moments in my life led to a particular path in life, and I am now assessing that path and considering carefully if it is indeed the path I wish to be on. My longing is less about reliving the experiences of the past, but rather a longing for certain future experiences that I hope for.

My adult life has so far been mostly focused around raising a family. I got married at 20 and had my first child days before I turned 23. The vast majority of the years since then have been spent at home caring for children and my household. In the early years of that journey, most of my future longings were still very centered around children. I daydreamed about getting pregnant, and then when I was pregnant I daydreamed about the baby to come. My nostalgia would be centered around family memories from my childhood, and special moments with my husband, and memories of my children. 

And while I am still very much in the midst of parenthood, there is a shift now, both in my children’s needs and in my desire to focus on something other than just motherhood, not to mention the fact that I most definitely am not sitting around longing for another baby. The last few years I’ve spent shifting my focus into discovering who I am other than “mom.” As I’ve dug into my soul, I’ve discovered treasure, pieces of myself that were hidden, buried underneath the layers of mothering. Some pieces I intentionally left behind to live this life, others I didn’t really know were there because I didn’t take the time to look at them before jumping headlong into marriage and childbearing. I’ve struggled with some of these discoveries and rejoiced in others. I’ve grieved the loss of not finding some of these earlier, and welcomed others back that I’ve missed. It’s been a hard, beautiful, and sometimes scary journey.

As we come out of nearly two years of pandemic living, which in many ways has put on hold some of my own personal journey as I’ve had to focus more on family and home again for awhile, I am now looking back on both my early adult life and what I’ve learned in more recent years and wondering if I have some choice in which paths my life takes next. I’m not just looking back on who I have been, but also wondering who I want to become. I’m noticing how some choices I have made in life led me to bury certain pieces of who I am and how I would like to make different choices now, to build different patterns into my life and work and faith.

So, I guess I’m no longer content to look back with unqualified nostalgia. I can be thankful for the wonderful things my life has been filled with so far, while also attempting to move forward into a life that is filled with different beautiful things. Obviously I am still a wife and a mom and the main household manager. But I am no longer content to let those things be the boundaries of my life.

I got up early a few Sundays ago to drive John to church since we currently only have one car. It was the first morning we needed winter coats when we stepped outside. I haven’t been sure yet how I feel about the upcoming winter in New England. This is the furthest north I’ve ever lived (except for our brief time in Germany) and I’ve wondered if I can handle a really cold season. As we drove the short drive to church I watched the houses go by and was struck by how comfortable and cozy everything looked in the cold air. A feeling of excited anticipation filled my heart. It was as if this little New England town whispered the promises of winter to me. “Yes, winter is a thing here,” it seemed to say, “but you are going to love it.” Perhaps it is time to fall in love with a new season.

The meal was over. The kids disappeared quickly back into a game of Mario Kart and John retreated to the quiet of our bedroom downstairs. I found myself sitting alone at the table staring at the overflowing counters and empty tablecloth. Dietrich flitted back and forth as he explained to me how this wasn’t actually the “feast” he had expected, and yet also claimed to be full. You have to read between the lines with him to be able to see the competing picture of expectations and reality in his head.

I sat and breathed for a few minutes and then I got up to tackle putting away all the food, filling the dishwasher, and wiping down the counters. My heart hurt. Just like Dietrich, I was struggling with competing expectations and several very real realities within my own head. On one hand, I was frustrated with the empty kitchen and the fact that only my hands were working to finish the mundane chores that follow any large meal. I felt very alone as I recognized the hours of labor that had gone into the few minutes of togetherness we had just experienced and how much of my time and effort had gone into this and somehow I was still the only one putting any thought into the details. But on the other hand, I was actually thankful for something to keep me busy, because when the activity stopped, the emptiness, the grief, the loneliness felt overwhelming. And so I didn’t ask for help, but rather finished it alone, sinking into the lonely feeling as my hands wiped the counters down.

And when my hands were finished, I stuck my headphones in, put on boots and headed outside to give my feet something to do. I walked away from the simultaneously full and empty house and followed a familiar route, breathing in fresh air while music filled my ears. It was then that the tears began to fall. I let the emotions come to the surface and I had a good cry. I allowed myself to explore all the competing emotions. It is possible to be thankful and also full of grief. It is possible to be happy and angry at the same time. It is possible to love people and also be annoyed with them. I was feeling all of these things and I needed to let the negative pieces come to the surface for a bit. I needed to grieve what I was missing today.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. But many of my favorite pieces of this holiday seem far away this year. Most of my Thanksgivings have been full of family and games and activity. Thanksgivings are not supposed to feel lonely. Past Thanksgivings in my childhood home were always stuffed just as full of activity as they were of food. The games never ended, though they might pause long enough for a brisk walk. 

Once I had walked far enough that the fresh air and tears had purged a bit of my depression, I called my family. I talked with my Dad and my Mom and one of my sisters. I wish I could say that for the rest of the day I was happy and content, but it was still pretty hard to make it through the rest of the day. After Dietrich went to bed we did play a family game, and that did help fill a bit of the emptiness. But a good portion of the afternoon I just wanted the day to be done. I couldn’t handle the disparity between my expectations and the reality of this year. It was as if all of what has been hard about this year, all of the waiting, stress, grief and disappointment, was concentrated into this one day. 2020, the 40th year of my life, has frankly sucked. It’s not that I can’t give you a list of positive things that have happened this year. I can. It’s not that I’m not thankful for the unexpected beauty I have found in our days. I am. Just like I can look at yesterday and tell you how wonderful it was to see my kids spending time together, how helpful they were when asked, and the moments of quiet that breathed life into me. And yet I can also tell you that the day still sucked. Both things are true. 

And that is what this whole year has felt like to me. There are so many wonderful, beautiful things, but they all exist in the midst of extreme and sometimes traumatizing hardship. Every good thing exists alongside a loss. Every bit of peace is paired with an unmet expectation, in a year I might add that started with some pretty high expectations for me personally and for my family. 

My guess is that I’m not the only one who felt this concentration of 2020’s mix of hard raw emotions surface on Thanksgiving. It was a day where many of us paused to say thank you, and perhaps you, like me, found that in the quiet after the thankfulness had been spoken aloud, other not so pleasant things asked for attention as well. The darkness has been there all along, and we can’t pause our activity and only recognize the positive, because light and dark are always connected. And in a year that has more than its share of darkness, it is not surprising that it felt overwhelming to me to recognize it.

In the midst of the upheaval these days–the unknowns, the closings, the call for social distancing–I have found myself recognizing a corresponding upheaval within myself. Almost all of us in this country have found our lives in some way affected by COVID-19 at this point, even if it is just the general noise surrounding the spread of the virus that finds its way into every moment of our days. I know that I am in the best spot possible to handle a life disrupted by a pandemic. Our basic needs are met and not under threat. I work from home already, so I don’t have to worry about needing childcare. None of us is at risk for serious complications should we catch the virus. I understand my privileged position and I recognize that all of this has and will affect others much more harshly.

But despite all the outer stability and my continued assurance that we are all going to be ok, I still felt a rising sense of uncertainty and fear and worry this last week. All week long, I was faced by the conversations surrounding this issue. All my news podcasts were tracking the spread, John and I had many conversations as he worked through his responsibility as a spiritual leader in this time, and my kids continually came home repeating whatever rumors were currently circulating in their schools. One of my four children usually brought home all the insistences that it’s really all going to be fine, another one had me check his temperature every hour because he was convinced that he had contracted the virus. His fears swung wildly between fear that he himself was going to die or that he was going to spread it to everyone else at school. 

In the middle of the week of holding all these things, of trying to manage and assure my children while also giving them truth (some of those school rumors were just plain ridiculous!), we had one really hard day. My worrier child began acting out in extreme ways, culminating in setting the toilet paper roll in the bathroom on fire. In my processing through his inexplicable actions, I realized it was his stress that was seeping out in unpredictable ways. Right on the heels of that realization was the accompanying realization of my own levels of high stress. Tears were below the surface that night as I went to bed, emotionally exhausted and anxious.

That was Wednesday. Thursday I had a previously scheduled EMDR session with my therapist, so I brought all my baggage to her and she helped me unpack it. I told her that it felt immature to admit that I was scared, and that I felt at war within myself over that fact. My head kept feeding me the assurances that things really were going to be ok, but deep inside something was still very scared. When we provided space for that fear to speak, I realized that it was connected to a previous version of myself. As a child, I was constantly worried about the spread of germs and washed my hands and arms repetitively. I was never worried that I myself would get sick, but rather that somehow I would get someone else sick. It was a compassionate impulse, but one that resulted in some very unhealthy obsessive behaviors.

That is very much a PAST version of myself. I spent years learning to not take those impulses quite as seriously, to relax, and to only wash my hand at appropriate intervals. I count it as a huge success that I no longer live my life constantly aware of everything my hands have touched and how long it has been since I washed them. But this week, as I was attempting to reassure my worrying child, I was telling him to wash his hands. Because, despite the fact that he is very like me in many ways, washing hands is not something he routinely does, EVER. So, I was attempting to point out the one thing he has control of that would have the greatest effect over his and everyone else’s health. At the same time I found myself washing my own hands much more frequently because I was recovering from a cold and was trying to be extra cautious. I didn’t realize how on a subconscious level all of these conversations and my own actions were poking that earlier version of myself. I realized how even though this part of me no longer controls my daily decisions, she still whispers to me occasionally, clouding my judgement with complicated emotions. I hear her every time one of my children tells me they are sick and can’t go to school, she’s the part that makes me feel guilty when I send them even though I have other voices of experience reminding me of the personal anxieties and common physical complaints of each child. I can be completely convinced of my child’s wellness and still feel a twinge of doubt because of this internal voice.

All that to say, this voice, though still often present, is not usually controlling. Continued experience continues to contribute to my present much more laid back common sense approach to life. But this week, that worried little girl in me was poked one too many times and past emotional baggage rose to the surface. My therapist encouraged me to cease my fighting, to instead, listen to the voice that wanted to speak and respond with compassion. I realize now that what that little girl needs is for me to figuratively wrap my arms around her and tell her it is ok to be scared, but that everything is going to be alright. I need to ask her to let the adult me take charge of the situation, to let go of the weight of responsibility that was threatening to overwhelm her. This is, of course, the same thing that I as a parent can do for and say to my worried son.

Our session wrapped up with her asking me to envision the possibility of a school closure, what that would look like for our family and to choose a positive cognition to approach the weeks ahead with. I chose “I am capable.” The day after my appointment all schools in WV were closed. I am thankful I had the chance to process and prepare internally for this event. I am capable. We will make it through, even though even in the best case scenario that I envisioned, it will be exhausting and we will probably make mistakes. But I have decided to proceed not only with caution, but with compassion.

Years ago, another therapist helped me see that what I thought were the worst parts of myself were shadows of my greatest strengths. My worries as a child were often centered around compassion for others. I hope I never lose that impulse towards love. 

Compassion allows me to hold in my heart all those who will be affected negatively by this pandemic, those who are at a greater risk of complications or death, those vulnerable to loss of income and/or access to regular food, those with insufficient healthcare, those who may find themselves caring for a sick family member, those who will be helping on the front lines. I can hold all that while also not internalizing it as crippling worry. Compassion can also hopefully help me find little ways that I as an individual can help counter the negative impact for others. Compassion will also counteract the fear that sometimes wants to drive my choices, helping me not give in to the panic. Yet at the same time, compassion allows me to treat with gentleness those who have lost the battle with fear and are driven by their own panic. I can have compassion for them because I recognize those same tendencies and urges within myself. Compassion allows me to reassure my family members, while also reminding them that the sacrifices we make right now are because we care for everyone around us, that our choices are motivated not just by a desire to protect them, but to protect everyone. Compassion allows me to forgive those leaders who may make mistakes in this time of unknown, knowing that new situations require our best efforts, but will often be filled with trial and error. And compassion also allows me to take care of myself, allowing space for all the emotions and confusion and fear, while also countering it with rest, wise consumption of media, stable routines, and grace for my own mistakes.

As I walked the short way to the bus stop to meet my boys’ afternoon bus, I breathed deeply of the cool refreshing air. It was cold, but not terribly so. The birdsong along the footpath sung to me of Spring, even though we are still technically in the dead of winter. As a breath of air hit me, I had a sudden flashback to my childhood. A day just like this popped into my head, cool and refreshing, with hints of Spring coming on the wind. Little piles of melting snow filled the yard, and the Stars of Bethlehem were just starting to push their way up through the muddy yard. It was March, and Spring was just around the corner, all the more beautiful because of the long weeks of cold winter. This day felt just like that day, except this day was one of the last days of January, not March.

I grew up in Arkansas, so winters were never terribly extreme or very long, but in my memory, they were colder and more solidly winterlike than they are now. I have distinct memories of struggling through knee deep snow drifts, sledding down frozen hills in the cow pasture, and waking up early to break through the ice in the stock tanks. I remember winters with broken water lines, large elaborate snow sculptures, and even a collapsed roof on the milk barn due to too much snow weighing it down.

I’ve never been a huge fan of cold, and I rejoice just as much as the next person on the random 70 degree days that are becoming more and more frequent in today’s winter. But, at the same time, I feel sad. Sad that a whole season seems to be slipping away all too quickly. I get insanely happy with every flake of snow I see, I like crunching through frozen puddles just as much as my kids, and I long for days of creative focus indoors while a snow storm rages outside. I’m mourning the loss of winter.

I recently finished reading The Overstory by Richard Powers, a story focused on trees and their relationship to humans, centered, as you might suspect, on our destruction of both the magnificent beings that trees are and the environments they live in. As the story wound its way towards the end, the various human characters’ stories intertwining in a complicated dance, the crisis turned chaotic. Things seemed to be rushing towards a terrible end, and I worried about how this book would finish. I wanted it to end with hope rather than despair, yet at the same time, I didn’t want that hope to be shallow or false. I really wanted to hold on to this sense of impending doom, because I think our only chance of shifting anything in our downward spiral towards extinction is to accept that it is actually happening. I know that there are people who refuse to acknowledge climate change at all, but I feel as it gets harder and harder to deny, the vast majority of people find themselves in voluntary denial. They admit that climate change is a thing and a very big problem, but find it much easier to close their eyes and ignore it in order to get through their days. And I don’t blame them. I find myself there often, because the problem seems too big and I feel too small.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone who wants to read this book (which I do recommend), but I will say that I did find a sense of hope, but it wasn’t an individual hope or an easy close your eyes and relax sort of hope. It was collective and complicated. And as I finished my walk to the bus stop with all of these themes settling into my consciousness, I felt a kinship to all the living things around me, not just humanity, but the world of trees, birds, and animals. We humans are a relatively late addition to this society of living things. I hope we have the time to learn from our brothers and sisters before our time is up.