Mental Health
What if This is Not Your Growing Season?
It’s okay if you haven’t accomplished anything yet this year
Achievement feels great. I love how it feels when I spring off the ground and produce, perform, and perfect at breakneck speed. I love how it feels to effortlessly grow, to sail with the wind at your heels.
But after graduating from university in Spring 2022 and starting my awesome new job in the nonprofit sector, that wind seemed to falter. I got a sinking feeling. This life after graduation, with its daily commutes, monthly rent, and the far-off glimmer of vacation when things are going well… is this all there is to life?
I’m moving up in a job that I love. I’m raising kittens. I am finally living in an affordable apartment and have left crowded fraternity-style housing far behind. I’m writing about weird history and trying to rekindle old relationships. I’m living my best life. Everything is spectacular.
And yet everything feels stagnant.
I’m getting restless.
I suppose restlessness is good. But it’s also autumn.
And no matter how I might deny it, autumn eventually bleeds into winter.
Every year right around this time I get worried about seasonal depression.
But you live in California! The golden state, speckled in year-round sunlight. And yes, the sun does indeed shine most of the California winter. For the most part, I love the city where I live.
But does it matter whether the sun is blasting if I stop going outside, stop spending time in the clover, and stop making plans for the future? My late-season blues don’t care about the weather. They convince us to move less, to stay inside.
But perhaps the wintertime sadness won’t pay a visit this year. My life is very stress-free right now, and I’m getting a lot of new opportunities at work. I’m rediscovering old interests. I’m carving out time to take care of my health and my new fur babies’ health. But I’m not quite sure if that means it’s time to start a bunch of new projects just yet.
Because what if it all falls down?
When I moved to my apartment in the early summer, I lingered on the balcony. This apartment came with a balcony?? So fancy! I promised myself that I would start a balcony garden. You’d be able to see the green terrace far down the street. But we’re three months in and I’m already killing the oregano I bought last week. And winter is coming.
I click through online gardening columns. What grows in winter? Even in California, I’ll have to wait until spring if I want to grow tomatoes, delicate climbing beans, or even some varieties of mushroom kits. Even fancy carnivorous plants and finicky perennials die back during this time of year.
It’s simply not their growing season.
What if winter is simply not my growing season?
The idea that we all have our own personal spring, summer, autumn, and winter isn’t new. Yet I often remind myself that many plants cannot grow under unfavorable conditions. Many drought-tolerant plants go dormant during the peak of summer. Many animals hibernate in the winter. And if you want to start a garden in winter, you better live in a sunshine state, and that garden ought to be mostly spinach and radishes.
Even the largest pumpkins stop growing by autumn’s end. So don’t expect to keep growing, growing, growing through winter.
Unless of course, you are a turnip.
All around me I see teenagers getting ready to apply for college. I remind myself that not very long ago, there was a time when I was expected to keep growing, growing, growing even when I felt that I couldn’t make it another day. I was growing throughout all four seasons. And yet I felt as if I wasn’t growing enough.
Throughout university, I was probably supposed to grow more than I did. Perhaps I didn’t do university right.
“I don’t get it. Going to office hours, forming relationships with professors, turning assignments in on time, AND doing research? How do you do all that? How do you manage it if you have a job? How do you take care of yourself?”
“You just grind. It’s what everyone does.”
“It’s not what *I* did.”
“It’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Maybe I got off easy. But if my experience in college was easy, I’m not sure I could ever go back to school for a graduate degree. I’m not sure I have any grit left.
I have grown. I enjoy my job. I love my coworkers. And there is more room for growth in my nonprofit. I know that there is a path to more responsibility waiting for me at work if I put in the time and effort. I have a path forward.
But I am extremely lucky. I know so many people who are trying to make it in environmental and outdoor careers. I know so many people who are still volunteering and working for free. So many people without a path forward.
How are the rest of us supposed to climb if there is no support for the journey up?
I’ve burnt out many times. Burnout wrecks plans. It kills motivation and leaves us in a place where nothing is exciting anymore. Growth becomes a chore. Waking up each day feels like one unending struggle.
I know enough not to let myself get to that point. I burn fairly easily. I’ve long since learned not to overextend myself, but that also means that I no longer set large goals for the future. That’s not a great place to be either.
But I think that whatever remains of my curiosity and ambition is enough to get me through this season and into the next, whether that’s a growing season or merely a period of sustaining and waiting.
A growing season might last only until spring or fall, but seasons might also describe periods of your life. Seasons might take years. And while they usually occur in standard succession — winter, spring, summer, autumn — that doesn’t mean that seasons must always progress in this manner. You might experience a spring in your late 50s. A summer when you least expect it.
You might reach your growing season much later in life. Poet Robert Frost, actress Leslie Jones, Stan Lee, and many others didn’t get their big break until after they reached their 40s.
If you’re simply putting in the time and looking for ways to build a firm foundation — even if progress seems slower than molasses — you’re already growing. Even if you haven’t accomplished anything this year. Even if you feel like you should be further along in life. If you are moving even a little, you are growing. Or at least headed in the right direction.
If you are thinking about the future and planting seeds that might grow further down the line, you are doing enough.
Your growing season will come.
I am on the come-up, but my growth is slow. Almost imperceptible.
I am getting restless. That restlessness is good. It’s making me read again. It’s making me write. It’s driving me to reconnect with old friends and consider how I might make better use of my days off work. Eventually, I might take community college classes or take up yoga or create art.
I will grow, and that growth will be barely noticeable.
I need to grow in the invisible ways, too. I need to spend more time with myself. I need to take myself on adventures. I need to spend less time on social media and more time in the real world. I need to rekindle a childlike sense of joy. I need to figure out how to cook something — anything — besides pasta. I need to figure out how to have better conversations and heal past traumas.
And the best part about this invisible growth is that I can take my time. After all, most growing takes place in the roots.
In California, the seasons blur together. So this year, I’d like to observe the changing of the seasons. It’s already autumn, and I have nothing to show for it but a few grocery store pumpkins in my apartment common area. I’d like to make fried apples. Go on a haunted hayride. Watch horror films.
I’d like to make plans so that this season, with its ups and downs, doesn’t slip through my fingers.
It’s okay if it isn’t your growing season. There’s so much to do right now besides achieving and working to the point of burnout. Maybe it is time to plant. You can plant seeds for something later on, or something that you’d like to do in the future. Perhaps it is time to bloom. Perhaps it is time to harvest.
“Every season is one of becoming, but not always one of blooming. Be gracious with your ever-evolving self.”
— Brittin Oakman.
