I think of that passage in the Bible from Ecclesiastes 3.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven..."

It has been ringing in my mind for some time now.  A time to weep and a time to laugh... and as I think of how the past couple of months have gone... how lonely I have felt, how life hasn't quite turned out as I planned.  And it's ok, really it is.  I'm ok.  I don't want to convey that I'm this depressed, miserable mess of a person right now, though I am a little.  I'm definitely the loneliest I've been in a very long time, but I'm ok.  Actually, I'm not entirely ok.  But I know that feeling this way won't last forever, and therefore I know I'll be ok.

And so right now is my time to be alone.  Not cut off from the world, no... but it is one of those times I feel I am going it alone.  Sadness is a lonely thing when no one else can share it with you.  A broken heart is different from other kinds of sad because no one else can feel it with you.  They can sympathize, they can cry with you, let you lay your head on their lap while you cry your eyes out.  But they can't feel what you feel.  They can't feel the aching heaviness that weighs on your heart... and when you're awake in the wee hours of the morning and sleep won't come and all you can do is think through every little thing you could have done differently... well, you're just alone.

I know I'm being incredibly vague here, and possibly melodramatic too... but when you're sad, well there's just no rational logic to it.  And it's ok to feel the way I feel right now.  I was raised to suppress my feelings in order to not burden others, and I will no longer do that.  Writing about it is therapeutic, for sure.

Like I said, I'll be ok.  Life is still very good.  It is still promising.  And right now, I don't know what the future holds.  I don't know where life will take me in the next year.  And there's a sort of excitement buried beneath all of my other feelings right now, because there's still so much promise.

And I have today, and it is good.  Today is good.  The leaves are still vibrantly and beautifully orange and red and yellow, though most of them are now on the ground.  But the last of them hang on the barren branches for dear life before winter will come and blow the rest of them away.  It's beautiful.  And the holidays, though the prospect of them is lonely, are just around the corner.  And I'm ready to take in each day for what it is.