Leaves fill the streets as autumn softly seeps its way in. The days feel cooler, and darkness comes sooner. Goosebumps cover my arms like tiny little mountains. Store windows are lined with coats, long sleeve dresses and summer sales pop up everywhere.
No matter where I am in the world, I always feel depressed at the end of summer. And trust me, I don’t use the word ‘depression’ lightly. It feels like I’ve entered a feeling of the bleak pointlessness; a feeling that I always fear could unravel into something longer term. Every year in Canada, at the end of summer, I’d go through this same state of sadness. It’s strange that even on the other side of the world in Australia when winter is far less intense than a Canadian winter, I still experience that familiar emotional trigger. As the saying goes, “wherever you go, there you are.”
I love how summer feels like wide-open freedom. You can put on any breezy outfit and you’re out the door. Winter is rigid and disciplined. You simply cannot do what you wish in winter, you must yield to it.
I don’t know at what age I stopped being a “winter person”, or maybe I never was. Maybe some people are born with summer in the hearts, and others are born with winter. I was born in the middle of a Canadian summer and I guess my body never forgot coming into this world with the air temperature similar to my own body’s.
The good thing about having seasons is that it teaches you to let go. It teaches you to savour what you have, while you have it. It reminds you that no matter what, life will always change shape and form. It’s a growing organism, just like we are. This too shall pass, nothing is forever, not even our emotions, as strong or as deep or painful they may feel.
“The romantic thing about the darkness is always the constant pull towards the light.”
Art Therapy with Kimberly 