Grey Season

Sometimes we go through seasons that are just grey; grey sky, grey walls… grey mood. When it’s grey, it’s hard to get excited about anything. Everything feels meh. And for being so boring and bland, for being so uninspiring, it’s also surprisingly exhausting. Grey is a soul killer. It can take you to such a low place that things start looking even darker and more muted. Life is numbed out. You get where I’m going. Grey Season.

But have your ever experienced like a week of grey skies and felt so low and then one day you wake up and the sun is out, and you just feel like you could literally burst with joy, you feel so energized and good. I would bet- without the grey space in front, it would be hard to feel the depth of how amazing that sun feels. I guess what I am trying to say is the world is complex and layered for a reason. If we walked around in bliss all the time, well, it wouldn’t feel so blissy after a while.

In my grief journey, it is important for me to remind myself that most of my life, the far majority anyway, has been a rainbow season/burst of sunshine. Yes, I have had extremely hard times and yes some of them have tried to break me, but overwhelmingly my life has been filled with that warm glow. Filled with love, acceptance, laughter, road trips, connection, family parties with friends and food and drinks and just, so much beauty. It was bound to happen that a grey season was on its way and if I am being honest, I know that it’s part of what makes your life whole.

Grey season is pain, suffering. It’s heartache and loss. Grey is all the times we were let down in a major way and when friendships die and when we feel crushed and lost, like we may never ever feel that warm sun on our skin ever again. But to have faith in this life is to know that the seasons always change. The sun always comes back. It finds its way through the clouds, and you will wake up one day and walk outside and tilt your head up and that feeling of life and love and energy will just wash all over you and once again, hope feels real.

When I Iost my mom, I lost not just her. I lost our daily talks. I lost the person that I went to when I was upset. I lost my protector, the person who defended me the fiercest. I lost a major part of who made me, me… and for those reasons, I lost my way. How could it be anything other than grey? Grey season can even have some sunny days, but I can still feel that bland color sitting in my soul. Squatting. But I have to have the faith that the sunshine will win. I have to know that mom’s light, and the light that surrounds us all, will eventually win. I won’t let it be any other way.

I’m in a grey season. The world isn’t supposed to be super bright for me right now. The work I have going on in my head and heart, shouldn’t be distracted by bright lights and shiny things. This is my job right now. My grey season is for grieving. It’s exactly where I need to be, whether I want it or not. Whether I try to ignore it or distract from it, grey season stays until the wind blows the pain out of my soul and I can let some more light in. Just because it hurts, and it’s not fun and I am struggling… doesn’t mean that’s where I stay. It doesn’t mean all hope and happiness is gone, and it doesn’t mean that for you either. For me, I can already feel the winds shifting a bit. I can feel the warmth of the sun a little more and I know that because I chose to face this season, face on, I will soon be stepping out of the grey.

So for whoever needs to hear it. For everyone who is in their grey season, and it seems never ending and like you won’t ever get to the point where the light is getting in. You’re not alone. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Suffering is a normal stage of life, but it doesn't have to be an end game. It always leads to the next chapter, and you get to decide what that next chapter will be. By sitting in your grey and asking what lesson is to be learned, you will grow out and beyond the pain you feel, becoming more than.

I should mention, you will have the strongest urge to run to warmer weather. You will have the urge to paint the walls and throw glitter at the ceiling, and if that makes you feel better… do it. But just know the deep down grey, the part of you that you can’t seem to shake, if you face it right on and acknowledge it and say – yep…. It’s my grey season… If you own it, then grey season starts to become a necessary thing that you feel some type of control over. And that sense of empowering has made all the difference for me.

Listen, grey season sucks. But it can also be beautiful. It’s a time where you retreat and work on the things that you need to. You heal and you rest and ready yourself for bigger and brighter seasons that I promise are just around the bend… if you let them be. And when you feel like it, and maybe even when you don’t, you can start to let some of that light in. Start to open your heart again and have faith that brighter days will come. And here’s the best part; every grey season makes you stronger than you’ve ever been before. It builds you up and gives you a new resilience and power you never knew you had inside of you. This is how we go through it guys. One step at a time. One season at a time. We got this.

Love, Nikki