I understand why the trees let go of their leaves. I have the advantage of knowing how this works. Autumn comes. Leaves fall. Winter follows. Then eventually spring returns.
I’ve seen it happen enough times that I don’t stand underneath a bare tree in November wondering whether it has made a terrible mistake. The tree, of course, doesn’t need my reassurance. It simply does what this season requires. I find that much more impressive when I think about how difficult releasing can be for us.
Because holding on feels safer. If I keep something close, maybe I can protect it. If I keep doing what I’ve always done, maybe nothing will change. If I think through every possible outcome, maybe I can prevent the bad ones. If I hold the relationship tighter, maybe it won’t become different. If I keep the thing, the tradition, the routine, the role, perhaps I can preserve what it represents.
There is comfort in having our hands around something. Even when what we’re holding is exhausting us. Release requires something different. Trust.
Not necessarily trust that everything will work out. I struggle with that kind of promise. Everything does not always work out the way we want. People leave. Plans fail. Bodies change. Relationships end. People die. Sometimes we release something because life has already taken the choice from our hands.
So trust cannot mean believing that releasing guarantees a happy ending. Maybe trust is recognizing that holding tighter doesn’t guarantee one either.
There are things we simply cannot preserve through force. I cannot keep the girls little by loving them harder. I cannot keep everyone I love safe by worrying enough. I cannot keep my body exactly as it once was by refusing to acknowledge how it has changed.
I cannot make someone remain the person I need them to be. I cannot keep a season from ending because I am not ready for the next one. And I cannot protect myself from every future loss by refusing to love what I might someday lose. That last one may be the hardest.
Everything we love asks something vulnerable of us. Eventually something changes. Maybe trust is what allows us to love anyway.
The tree releases its leaves. Not because the leaves didn’t matter. Not because the season was unsuccessful. Not because what comes next is guaranteed to be easy. It simply cannot carry this season’s leaves forever. Maybe there are things I wasn’t meant to carry forever either.
An expectation. A responsibility that no longer belongs to me. A version of myself I’ve outgrown. A decision I keep revisiting even though it has already been made. The belief that if I worry enough I can somehow prepare myself for every possible outcome.
Trust might mean loosening my grip on those things. Not throwing them away. Not pretending they never mattered. Just opening my hand enough to recognize that I am still here without holding quite so tightly.
Behind the puddle, the trees will continue releasing their leaves. One at a time. They don’t need to know exactly what winter will bring.
And neither, perhaps, do I need to know everything that happens after I loosen my grip. Maybe I only need enough trust for the next release. The next adjustment. The next day. The next season. I don’t need to trust that everything ahead will be easy. Maybe I can simply trust that I don’t have to control everything ahead in order to meet it when it arrives.
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