I spent an entire college autumn playing sad-boy ballads on repeat. That summer I’d had a bad breakup and the gloomy music made me a scintilla less so. By winter, it was enough to lift me out of that unhappy valley. This summer took me to a new valley and this autumn I can’t find my CDs.
Now all Spotify is serving up is the Taylor Swift oeuvre as per my kid’s demands. Sorry Ms. (Mrs.?) Swift, this is not that kind of breakup.
All I really want is to have Alanis remind me That I would be good, even if my business isn’t. That’s the song currently playing on repeat in my head.
Sharing space in my head is a Substack essay from Simon Sinek about a painting of a dead bird he recently added to his art collection. In the essay he makes peace with the fact that we need the sad as well as the happy in art and in life. He embraces the full range of emotions we get to feel as humans.
His piece reminded me that I too get to feel the full spectrum. I too experience moments of sadness, happiness, and all the feelings between those poles.
So here I sit contemplating the now, the pain, the struggle, the ugly parts of doing it on my own that mama never warned me about. Or maybe she did and I was in the wrong season to listen. It seems I’m often in the wrong season to notice warnings.
In this season of beautiful decay, I’m not looking for warnings. I’m living in this valley with the discomfort of dead leaves and birds, looking for my CDs and knowing that seasons change.
Mine change, so will yours.
Disclosure: I write these posts. AI helps me edit them.