10.23.2018

in the rearview

 
I've heard this from others, so it's not just me. But yes, fall always makes me look back. I think it has something to do with fall being the last gasp before a long winter. The letting go of everything. And so instinctively, we reach back for the old memories, or something to hold onto.

I looked at my Instagram account a few days ago and I have only posted like 12 times this last year. I almost want to shake the shoulders of my past self just to tell her how much time she's gonna waste on social media just mindlessly scrolling, trying to numb out any bad feeling (and then, ironically, the bad feeling was replaced with other bad feelings, only they were in disguise as...something else I guess). This time last year, I wasn't in my happiest state of mind. Winter was on its way and so was my dread.

I left fingernail marks on fall and everything that came before it. I was imagining a vast wasteland of winter. Have you ever been to the salt flats?

Imagine a little speck in the middle of it, and that was me, in the middle of winter.

In my mind, that thought was enough to keep me up at night. Coupled with a mindless, unfulfilling job and living in a basement...I was basically a ghoul ready to haunt something. Maybe even myself.

This is not to say that there were not moments, even long moments, of happiness in my life. My husband is without a doubt the most patient, understanding person I could have chosen. Any time with him calmed my anxiety. But anxiety is not always so simple, and it cannot be "cured" by another person. You can only fix it yourself. So that's the tricky part, right? Because then you have to say "I need help. I don't know how to fix this thing." When you're already an anxious perfectionist, asking for help is about the farthest thing from easy.

And even when you do get help (which I did), you have to be willing to let things go.

Let things go.

Just like the trees do every year. This morning I noticed there are two autumns--there is one in early October, when most of the aspen trees explode in their fall colors and then die out. And after that initial bursting, we think it's over. A frost appears on the windshield or the sidewalk where the neighbor left their sprinklers running overnight. You close your eyes and wait for winter's first blow. But then!

All the trees that hadn't caught up to the first part of fall, they start to turn. And their colors might be the most beautiful of all, because they're mixed in together, all the reds and ochres and goldenrod and the rainy mists that follow. I don't really know what I'm saying now, except that I think it doesn't matter when you decide to let go, as long as you don't wait until it's already winter and the frost covers all those beautiful colors anyway.











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