Behind the Puddle

I don’t think the trees let go of everything. Eventually, they will release their leaves. The landscape will become bare. From where I sit, it might look like they have given almost everything away.

But the tree remains. Roots still hold the ground, and branches remain where leaves once were. Everything needed for another season is still there, even when much of what I can see has been released.

Maybe that’s what balance looks like during change. It may be less about choosing between holding on and letting go and more about knowing what belongs in each hand. I tend to think of holding and releasing as opposites.

Either I am holding onto something, or I am letting it go. We receive plenty of encouragement to release things. We are told to let go of the past, expectations, changed relationships, and who we used to be. Sometimes, that is necessary.

But there are things I don’t want to let go of. I want to keep the people I love, memories, stories, traditions, places that have shaped me, and versions of myself that survived something difficult. I also want to carry the things people taught me and the moments that changed the way I understand the world.

I don’t think moving forward requires me to put all of that down. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be released. They are meant to be carried differently. Behind the puddle, summer is slowly giving way to autumn.

The baby geese aren’t babies anymore. That part is gone. But I still have the memory of watching them when they were tiny.

The girls will keep growing. I can’t hold them at this age. But I can hold the stories of who they are right now.

The patio, wildlife, routines, Brian, and I will all change with the seasons. Life will keep asking us to adjust. But change doesn’t get to take everything with it. We get to carry some things forward. Maybe the challenge is figuring out what.

There are things we hold because they matter, and there are things we hold because we’re afraid of what happens if we don’t. Those reasons can look very similar from the outside. A tradition can connect us to people we love. It can also become something everyone feels obligated to continue because no one wants to be the person who changes it.

A memory can comfort us, or we can hold it so tightly that nothing new is allowed to exist beside it. A version of ourselves can remind us how far we’ve come, or we can keep trying to become someone we haven’t been for years. Maybe balance asks us to notice the difference. It asks us to consider what still nourishes us, what we are carrying because it belongs to us, and what we are gripping because we’re afraid.

The trees don’t release their roots when they release their leaves. They keep what sustains them. They let the season take what has finished its work. Perhaps I can learn something from that.

I don’t need to throw away the past to welcome what comes next. I don’t need to preserve everything exactly as it was in order to honor what mattered. Some things can remain, some can change, some can leave, and some can become part of me in a different way.

Maybe balance isn’t standing perfectly still between holding and releasing. Maybe it is learning that both can happen at the same time. It requires one hand to remain open, one hand to hold what still matters, and enough trust to know the difference.