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Every year, I try to understand the emotion that runs through me during these seasonal shifts.

It’s as if the leaves are reminding me that another layer of myself is shedding.

Every single year, I feel this way. And it’s heavy. The shedding of another piece of myself forces me to reflect, and as a result, I grieve.

I never realized that it was grief I was feeling all those years, but now, I understand that I am grieving.

I am not only grieving the warm, long days of summer, but I am grieving every single summer I’ve experienced before this one. And with that, I grieve past lovers and past lives I’ve lived that no longer feel like mine.

This time of year does that to me.

And I find it truly amazing how the pain can simultaneously be so goddamn beautiful. The grief. The colors. The memories.

But I know it’s not that simple to recognize the beauty of the pain because it’s so easy to get pulled into the trenches of grief and believe there is no way out.

But there is. There is always a way out, and, unfortunately, it’s often through. And let’s be honest, no one really wants to move through the pain, but if we want to get out, we have to.

And whenever I feel like I am aching through a cold inner battle of grief, there is one Rupi Kaur quote I always return to:

 

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