The Bittersweet Side of Autumn

During a recent group peer-support session I facilitated, our conversation turned to fall.

Almost everyone agreed: we love it.

Here in Ontario, September can feel almost perfect. The sun is still warm, but there's a crispness in the air. The leaves are beginning to change, boasting incredible colours. Sweaters come back out. Thanksgiving isn't far away, and somewhere in the near distance, we know we'll soon be making plans for traditional gatherings and joyous celebrations.

There is something deeply nostalgic about this time of year.

But as we talked, something else emerged.

Alongside all that warmth was sadness.

Not overwhelming sadness. More like an undercurrent. A longing. A sense of missing something or someone that can be difficult to pinpoint.

What struck me was that it is only September.

The very season itself seemed to be stirring something.

It made me wonder: Why can nostalgia sometimes feel a bit like grieving?

Psychologists have long described nostalgia as a bittersweet emotion - one capable of holding positive and negative feelings at the same time. We can experience warmth, connection and even excitement when revisiting a memory from the same season in years past, while simultaneously feeling sadness because that memory may include a moment, person or version of our lives that no longer exists in quite the same way.

Maybe that's because nostalgia is rarely just remembering something we loved.

It is also recognizing that we cannot return to it.

A certain smell in the air can remind us of childhood. A cool morning can take us back to walking our children to school when they were small. A particular meal can bring back a kitchen, a home, a person or a family tradition that doesn't exist in quite the same way anymore.

Sometimes we find ourselves missing people we once spent this season with. Perhaps they have moved away, distanced themselves or passed.

Sometimes they're still very much in our lives, but the relationship has changed.

Sometimes distance, estrangement, separation or simply the passing of time has changed the shape of a relationship.

And sometimes what we miss isn't another person at all.

Sometimes we miss who we were when that memory was being made.

That is why beautiful memories can hurt.

The happiness is real. But so is the loss. And fall may be particularly good at holding both.

There is also something poetic about a season that becomes breathtakingly beautiful while simultaneously letting go. The leaves change, the days shorten, summer disappears, the cold begins to creep in, and everything around us quietly reminds us that change is inevitable.

Maybe our own memories respond to that, too?

Something else came up during our conversation that I think is important to reflect upon...

How frustrating it can feel when you've been doing well - working on yourself, feeling stronger, moving forward - then suddenly you find yourself being pulled toward sadness again.

But the return of grief does not necessarily mean the loss of progress.

Sometimes a season simply touches a memory that has been quiet.

Grief isn't always loud. It doesn't always announce itself as grief. Sometimes it arrives as nostalgia. Sometimes as longing. Sometimes as an inexplicable heaviness on an otherwise beautiful September afternoon.

We don't always need to push it away or figure out exactly why it's there. Maybe sometimes we can simply notice it.

‘I miss something that mattered to me. And I'm allowed to feel the warmth of remembering it while also feeling the sadness of no longer experiencing it in quite the same way.’

Maybe that is one of the strange gifts of autumn.

It reminds us that something can be beautiful and still be ending.

That we can be grateful and still grieve.

And that sometimes, missing something is simply another way of remembering how much it once meant to us.

🍂 Before You Go…

If this season is stirring up feelings you weren't expecting, you don't have to immediately explain them away or convince yourself that you should be feeling happier.

Pause for a moment and ask yourself:

What am I missing - and what does that tell me about what once mattered to me?

Sometimes the sadness beneath nostalgia isn't asking us to go backward. It may simply be reminding us that a person, place, relationship, tradition or version of ourselves held meaning.

You can miss what was and still appreciate what now is.

You can feel grateful and still grieve.

And you can keep moving forward while carrying both.

— Shannon K. Shinn

Founder, Dignified Reinvention™

Creator of The REST Method™