I’ve been a bit of a drag lately.

I couldn’t figure it out at first. Energy. Gone. And just feeling…down. A little bit like that episode of Winnie the Pooh with Tigger and the rain cloud that wouldn’t leave him alone. The sun is shining, and yet there’s this pesky rain cloud hovering overhead. No matter where I go.

And then I realized it…it’s that time of year. When the cool nights start creeping up on you. The days are getting just slightly shorter, but short enough to be noticed. The sky has that foretelling darker shade of blue. The wildflowers and the weeds and the ditch grass look spent, curling their heads under, succumbing to their dry crisp edges and impending death.

It’s coming…fast.

The change of seasons.

It happens every year.  {Duh, Erin. Obviously.} And every year, I say, “Hey…you’ll do next summer better. You will soak up every single second of it and when fall comes around, you will have no regrets.”

And every year, when the smell of fall is in the air, it is always before I’m ready.

No matter how many times we went swimming in the beautiful, clean clear lake just behind the slice of land we call home.

The same lake I grew up swimming in. This summer, I have swam more than I have any other summer in my adult life.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

No matter how many Saturdays we take the kids into town for World’s Best Donuts (one of the many seasonal shops in our little harbor town- and yes, they really are world’s best), and spend the morning skipping rocks on Lake Superior. Or digging for agates and sea glass. Or letting the kids get their feet wet in the icy cold water.

It’s just not enough.

No matter how many times a little mama hen shows up unannounced with a fuzzy little brood in tow.

How could there ever be enough?

Well…my husband might disagree. But he’s not the writer here.

It could happen a thousand times. Not that I take it for granted, it’s just that…it’s part of this season. The season that makes my soul come alive.

The season of growth and abundance and life.

{This is me, in the summer. Yep.}

No matter how many wild berries picked.

No matter how many baskets filled.

No matter how many toads and snakes and caterpillars caught.

It just could never be enough.

But please…don’t think that I’m unappreciative of the many gifts I am graced with in this life. It’s such a good life. The type of life that I used to dream about as a child. Even then, I just wanted the simple things. A simple life. And I have that. And I’m so grateful.

But with the passing of my favorite season, the one that frees us from the dark, cold depths of some of the longest and most brutal winters in the country, I find myself in mourning. Because no matter how much we do, how many moments we spend just sitting back and enjoying, it’s never quite enough. It passes all too quickly.

Yet on the other side of this mourning always come the eventual acceptance. As much as I resist and fight the winds of change, I know that nothing I can do will stop them. It’s in that moment that I both submit to and embrace the new, coming season. The harvest season. The season of so much work and even more reward. The season where my canners and shelves and freezers are bursting at the seams.

In just a couple of weeks, we will be out bear hunting, hoping to fill both of the tags that my husband and I were both blessed to draw this year. Then it’s time to harvest pigs and turkeys and lambs. And riding the coattails is deer season.

So much opportunity. So much to be grateful for.

And I’ll get there. Soon enough.

But for now…that same dark cloud that followed Tigger around is going to tag along with me. For a while.

Because just as the seasons come and go, so does this cloud of mourning. And without the change of seasons, I would not fully appreciate each of them and what they have to offer. I wouldn’t feel that need to soak up every moment.

So I’m just trying to hang on to the few moments that are left in this one.

And hang on, I will.

Until it’s time to let go.