Can I Handle the Seasons of My Life?

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of music I loved as a child. James Taylor. The Chicks. Fleetwood Mac. Songs that somehow hold entire eras of my life inside them.

Maybe it’s this season of change. Aspects of me seeking comfort. Maybe it’s getting older and feeling nostalgic.

Listening to these lyrics through a more seasoned lens hits different. It’s a little like opening old photo albums; remembering the way life looked through the eyes of a different me.

Some songs feel like balm on my heart. Some send waves of grief through my bones. Some remind me of versions of myself I haven’t visited in years.

And one of my favorite songs of all time I listen to a lot when change is afoot - Landslide - has been on repeat.

There’s a line in that song that often takes my breath away:
“Can I handle the seasons of my life?”

I think most of us ask ourselves that question at some point.

When life changes quickly.
When relationships shift.
When the future feels uncertain.
When we’re stretched beyond what feels comfortable or familiar.

Can I handle this?
Can I really do this?
What if this breaks me?

But as the journey of life unfolds, the more I realize something.

Even the moments I thought I couldn’t survive... I did.

Not always gracefully.
Not always cleanly.
Sometimes I fell apart. Sometimes I withdrew or retreated. Sometimes I had to rest longer than I expected. Sometimes I cried on the kitchen floor and let life rearrange me.

But somehow, eventually, I moved through it.

And when I look back at the hardest seasons of my life, I can see that they shaped me in ways comfort or convenience never could have.

They softened me. Marinated me.
Strengthened me.
Made me more honest.
More compassionate.
More true to myself.

I don’t think resilience always looks powerful in the moment.

Sometimes resilience looks like pivoting.
Sometimes it looks like asking for help.
Sometimes it looks like feeling everything fully and allowing yourself to completely unravel instead of numbing it away.

But over and over again, we survive things we once thought would destroy us.

And somehow we come out the other side better.

Maybe that’s part of the miracle of being alive.

And if you’re in a season that feels uncertain, uncomfortable, or deeply transformative right now, I hope you remember this:

You do not need to move through it perfectly to move through it successfully.

And I hope you’re being as kind to yourself as your dear friend would be to you.

With love,

Annaliese