J.L. Fizzell

I snapped this photo on my morning walk, and then it led me down a rabbit hole.

We often look at the seasons as fitting a very specific set of rules. Trees lose their leaves in fall.They’re bare for the winter. Growth and regeneration happen during spring. Then I look at this tree holding on to a handful of last year’s leaves, while simultaneously being in a stage of new growth. I know the leaves will fall eventually, but it got me thinking about what it means to be ready for growth.

Growth, by nature, is messy. Fall is the most obvious metaphor, and it comes with this beautiful notion that the trees will let go of everything it no longer needs to survive the cold season. We use that as a framework to help guide us in our own shedding seasons. I know I have, but the more I think about these leaves, the more I’m not sure it’s the full truth.  The nuance lies in the fact that the leaves will release when they are ready, and not because the majority have abided by “the rules”. They’re no longer being fed, but simultaneously not ready to let go.

I feel this in my soul. There are scripts, eras, griefs and memories that no longer feed who I am becoming but they linger, sometimes into my own season of spring. In the middle of our own regeneration, there will be some things that take a little longer to let go. I think some of us, myself included, get hung up on a more simplified version of growth.

Many trees will lose all their leaves. Some will not. Maybe readiness doesn’t include the complete absence of what was there before. Maybe we don’t have to hold ourselves to the standard of a perfect release, in order to begin again.