A Soul Built For Seasons

I’m a Soul Built for Seasons Pure sun has always made my skin crawl. And I started to wonder why.

It’s not total freedom from bad things, or total happiness, that makes us happy.

Every time there’s a warm, sunny day— specifically on the weekend, specifically when I have nothing that I need to do— when I have the whole day free…

I go to the gym, and then I go to the beach, surrounded by everyone outside.

Most people think it’s amazing: a day off, no responsibilities, sun blaring, just pure happiness and freedom.

But for me, there is this underlying anxiety. There’s no pure happiness. There’s no freedom. There is only emptiness. So much emptiness.

Like everyone is out trying to be happy, feeling like they need to be happy. So many people. So many noises. So many crowds. People drinking. People smoking cigarettes. People playing games. Why is it not all fun and games to me?

It’s not just the sun that makes us happy. It’s feeling whole in our bodies. It’s feeling freedom, in spite of everything. It’s not freedom through detachment that brings joy— it’s freedom from being so attached to the fucking ground that you finally remember how to dance.

It’s freedom that is grounded, not freedom that makes you feel like you’re floating away.

Detaching isn’t what makes us free. That’s the whole misconception.

It’s strongly attaching— and moving through it— that makes us most happy. That frees us the most.

Just like how living in endless sun doesn’t make me happy. It’s the sun after the rain that does. It’s the sunrise. The sunset. The transitions. The seasons.

So what you see might look like I’m only living in the sun— but I’m not. It’s only because I sat in the rain.

Because when I try to sit in the sun on a warm, sunny day— I don’t feel the warmth at all. I just feel like the sun shines right through me, because all I am is emptiness.

Avoidance doesn’t bring the deep sense of embodiment and joy that I carry. That came from walking through the storm. From living through the fall, the winter, the spring— and then arriving at the summer.

Because without those, summer feels darker than all the rest. No matter how much sun. Because the sun shines right through you when there’s nothing inside to catch the light.

It’s like the sun exposes something empty in your body but doesn’t give you permission to let the darkness out.

Home is fall. Home is mountains. Home is the fresh smell of trees. Home is pumpkins and warm drinks. Home is warm tea in my pajamas. Home is writing poems in the dark.

Home is emotion. Like, real emotion. Home isn’t happiness. Home is joy. Home is laughter. Home is peace. Home is tears. Home is grief. Home is pain. Home is love. And home is rain.

The sun— the brightness, the performance, the hypeness— that may be happiness to some. But without knowing where it’s from— the darkness that turned into sun— it just feels like emptiness.

“No tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

Joy is something rooted. It lives underground. In the dark. In the dirt. In the places most people try to avoid.

Depth inherently is more than one emotion. It’s grief intertwined with beauty. It’s belly laughs hugging old wounds. It’s softness that stayed soft, even after the storm.

That kind of deep joy isn’t pure happiness— it comes from contrast. From holding everything at once.

Because pure happiness is shallow. But pure joy goes so deep. It’s belly laughs until you cry— because you’re laughing at something that once caused you pain.

It’s teasing the part of yourself that once was an open wound. It’s dancing in the rain because you remember what it felt like to drown.

Joy like that isn’t naive. It’s earned.

You don’t get those experiences from things that were only ever good, only ever lighthearted, only ever easy.

Real joy grows from the aches. It rises from the ashes. From the mess. From the hardships you lived through— and the softness you chose to hold on to, in spite of it

.