How beautiful it is to let things go

September is not my favorite month. There are many reasons why but one September day 8 years ago my father did not wake up. It was one of the most beautiful days I can remember. The sky was the most brilliant blue and it was warm but not too warm and there was a light breeze and not a cloud in the sky. The phone call from my sister is ingrained in my brain, her words, her erratic volume and sobbing. I stood in the yard, the sun on my face, watching the traffic go by wondering why no one had stopped it and told them my Dad had died and they needed to turn around and go home. My body, and every ounce of it will never forget that moment. Our bodies keep the score, so every September every ounce of me starts its annual shut down. I can tell you the minute it starts and I can tell you the minute I start coming up out of it. It takes a good couple weeks. And it took me a good few years to learn how to honor the evolution. The harder I fought it the harder it was to get through it. So now I ride it out like a wave. Some years are easier than others. The thing about this particular ride is that it always brings me to the shore, it always brings me to the beginning of fall.

Fall is my favorite season. I love everything about it.
I love the way the temperature drops, the way the wind blows, the way the entire landscape changes colors almost over night.
I love the sound of crunching leaves and I love crackling fires and I love smores and I love hayrack rides (dear God how long has it been since you have been on one of those) and I love seeing combines in the field and I love the way we mentally and emotionally start slowing down and preparing for winter not just outside but inside our minds as well (which most people I know hate, but I love that season too.)
I love apple cider slush, and road trips to random orchards and I REALLY REALLY love apple cider donuts. I mean like I might be slightly obsessed with finding the best one in the USA (it is currently at The Belted Cow Orchard outside of Monmouth, Illinois.)
Almost every fall of our lives growing up our Mom decorated outside with corn stalks, pumpkins and gourds. I have not personally reached that level of commitment to my love of fall, but in the past few years I have made peace with the flavor of pumpkin (yes I love lattes, and bars with cream cheese frosting or my Sisters pumpkin cookies…hugs from Jesus. You can keep your pie to yourself.)
I love the way the sun filters through the trees and the way it dances across everything it touches like it hears a song that only the sun can hear.
I even love the rainy fall days and the sound the rain makes on the fallen leaves. It is not the same sound the rain makes any other time of year. Or how the fall puddles are dark and mysterious like they hold secrets.
I love the wind in the fall and how you can literally hear the leaves let go, if you close your eyes and try hard.
I love putting on my fall clothes. Clothes that hold me tight like a hug and keep me warm, like love does.
I love that I took a bucket list trip to see New England in the fall because if you really love fall like I say I do, it is an absolute must because there is nothing like it.

Even after all of that love that I have for fall, there is one thing I love more than all of those things combined. I love how it shows us how absolutely beautiful it is to let things go. I never get sad when this happens because I know that the spring will bring new life not just in nature but in my own being.

Letting go feels like giving up. It is exactly the opposite of that. Letting go can be as beautiful as the fall shows us every year without fail that it can be. Letting go means releasing the hold we have on something or something has on us. It means saying it is OK for this moment and this memory to move on. Not disappear, just move on. For fall letting go means there is a winter coming. A period of solace and self reflection. (When is the last time your life was as quiet as it is outside when it snows?) Letting go means you are ready to accept peace.

I love all of the seasons and what they represent and how much they coincide with our own life journeys but none of these seasons put on a display quite as beautiful as fall does. Isn’t that amazing since fall has the most to lose by letting go?

If there is something you want to let go of, I can help. You will not let it go so that you never see it again, you will let it go so that a new version of you can appear and start the seasons of your life all over again. You will learn how to let go by honoring the very thing you are trying to release. You may even actually hold on to it tighter just in a way that shows you how beautiful it is to even have it to let go of in the first place.

I love fall. I love everything about it.