Learning to Live Fully in the Season You're In
Tammy Renée | Creating the Beautiful Life
5 min read
As a former English Literature teacher, I often think of my life in terms of chapters — or seasons.
And as I recently transitioned my home from one season to the next, it got me thinking about how we are often waiting for the next season of our lives to begin, when we imagine that life will be more settled, or more like the one we envision — or else we’re longing for seasons that came before.
But somewhere between remembering what was and looking ahead to what might be, we’re overlooking the life that’s actually taking place here — and now.
The natural world seems to understand this much better than we do. Trees don't apologize for letting go of their leaves. And the earth doesn't cling to August when the first chilly morning arrives.
Each season arrives, stays for a while, gives what it has to give, and then makes room for the next. We humans have a harder time with that.
We tend to become attached to particular past versions of our lives and of ourselves. For others, though, the temptation isn't to live in the past at all. It's to spend our days looking ahead.
We tell ourselves that when this difficult or uncertain season is over, then we’ll really start living. But when we do this, our present lives become little more than a waiting room.
And neither longing for the past nor reaching for the future is where our lives are actually taking place. Our lives are happening here — on this ordinary day.
In the circumstances we're living with now. In this particular body we have. With the people who are around us. And with circumstances we might never have chosen.
This is the season we've been given to inhabit.
Living in Each Season as it Passes
In his journal on August 23, 1853, Henry David Thoreau wrote:
"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth."
There's something wonderful and distinctive about that invitation. He isn't asking us to simply reflect on the season. He's asking us to actively participate in the seasons that come, and allow ourselves to be influenced by all their elements.
I think this same idea applies to the seasons of our lives, too.
Of course, not every season of life is one we would have chosen. And some seasons are genuinely difficult. Even then, we can be grateful for what they teach us without wishing to experience them again.
Over the years, I've come to believe that we don't have to love everything about a season to still live meaningfully within it — for there's no perfect time in our lives. Each season carries its own particular mixture of beauty and difficulty.
When my children were young, there were joyful noises emanating from our home each day. There were snuggles and laughter, and I felt a clear and fulfilling purpose in my life. But there was also exhaustion, and often, overwhelm.
Now that my children are all grown, my home is quiet. And there's freedom in that quiet. I have time to read and reflect, to pursue interests that I previously didn’t have time for — or to take an uninterrupted nap when I want to.
I’ve had the time and space to discover who I am when no one else is around.
And yet, there are evenings when that same freedom can feel like loneliness. Freedom and loneliness within the same day? Yes, both can be true.
That's something I understand much better now than I did when I was younger. We spend so much of our lives wanting things to resolve themselves neatly into one category or another.
Happy or sad.
Success or failure.
Blessing or burden.
But most of life refuses to be tied up in such a nice, tidy bow.
A season can contain both disappointment and possibility.
Growing older can bring losses we didn't ask for, and also freedoms we couldn't have imagined during the fuller years of our lives.
Perhaps part of growing wiser is learning we don't have to choose one interpretation and discard the other.
A life can contain grief, uncertainty, disappointment, and unfulfilled longings without becoming any less beautiful.
Not the kind of beauty that depends upon everything going according to plan, but the kind that is sturdy enough to hold the whole untidy substance of being human.
What This Season Has to Give
I'm in one of those in-between seasons now.
My children are grown, I've recently made a change in my professional life, and I still have questions about what will come next.
Not everything about this season is what I would have chosen. But it has given me things, too.
It's given me peace. It's given me time. Time to read. Time to learn. Time for long walks and quiet mornings. And time to reflect on questions such as. . .
What matters to me now, in the season that I'm in?
What kind of life do I want to create from here?
What do I want to pour myself into in the years I still have?
These aren't questions I would have asked in the same way twenty years ago. My life was so full of various responsibilities that I rarely had time to think that far ahead.
However, I'm beginning to appreciate that every season offers opportunities that belong particularly to that season.
Some seasons ask us to build and nurture. Some ask us to release what has ended, and others ask us to reconsider what truly matters.
And even when a season contains circumstances we never would have chosen, it may also hold gifts we couldn't have discovered any other way.
Reframing Difficult Seasons
Acceptance is not the same thing as approval. It isn't saying, "This is exactly what I wanted." And it doesn't require us to pretend that disappointment isn't disappointing, or that losses don't matter.
Sometimes it is simply saying:
This is where I am. And because this is where I am, I'm going to truly be here.
I'm going to look for what is still beautiful.
I'm going to love the people who are here.
And I'm going to trust that this season, too, has things to teach me.
Thus, we don't have to wait until everything is settled to begin living well. And we don't have to know what the next ten years will hold before we can make today meaningful.
We can remain hopeful about what lies ahead without treating our present as something to be endured until we get there.
A Life Still Unfolding
So I don't want to spend too much time longing for a season that has already passed. And I don't want to rush ahead to a life that might someday unfold.
I want to be here — reading the books, taking the walks, tending to my home, calling the people I love to check in, and doing the work that is mine to do.
I want to pay attention to the goodness that is here now, even though it sits alongside some things that are difficult, too.
So wherever this season finds you, my friend, here are some questions worth asking:
What goodness can still be found here?
And what might this particular season be giving me that I hadn't expected?
October in the Marshes by John Frederick Kensett (1872)
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself
to the influence of the earth."
— Henry David Thoreau
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