For Everything, a Season

on love, loss, and the verses that hold us together

Have you ever heard a truth that comforted you but also confronted you? For me, it’s this verse:

for everything, there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven

a time to be born and a time to die

a time to kill and a time to heal

a time to tear down and a time to build up

a time to cry and a time to laugh

a time to grieve and a time to dance

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

I recite this verse every time I lose understanding of what’s happening with me. It steadies me, reminds me that the world runs on patterns I cannot fully control. For every pain that I feel, I console myself by saying: this is just a phase, and a phase doesn’t define me. A phase passes. A phase doesn’t last forever.

It became my favourite line when I knew, deep down, that I really liked you but tried to trick myself into believing it wasn’t time for me to experience something that consuming. “For everything there is a season”, I repeated to myself, because it felt safer than admitting that my heart had already chosen.

I convinced myself that if you ever left, I wouldn’t be shattered, because this too would just be another phase. Maybe for once, I shouldn’t “deep it”. Maybe I should just float on the surface, not drown in analysis, not demand meaning.

And for a while, I lived in the moment. Those moments really did bring me joy. I found myself laughing in ways I hadn’t in so long. Even when some things between us made no sense at all, I still chose to see the light in you. The way you listened. The ease in your presence. How I didn’t stutter so much when I was with you, even though I only saw you like thrice in small glimpses(crazy, right?). With you, life felt light, almost embarrassingly easy.

But I also saw this ending before it even began. Maybe that’s why I tried so hard to shrink my feelings, to pretend they weren’t swelling the way they did. Maybe I thought that by lowering my expectations, the fall would hurt less. But truth has a way of catching up, and now it feels heavier because I can’t say I wasn’t warned. I feel like a fraud for even being hurt, because GIRL YOU KNEW. So why the fuss? Why the ache?

Truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know why there’s still a flicker of hope inside me that somehow, one day, it would be time, and everything would align. I don’t know why I prayed THE PRAYER; the one where I asked God to let what’s meant for me stay, and now I feel betrayed by the silence.

I don’t know why writing this both feels like grieving and bargaining at the same time. Because are you really gone? Or is my heart just refusing to accept it?

And I guess that’s the cruel thing about '“phases”. They sound temporary, like something you simply outgrow, like a pair of shoes you no longer wear. But this doesn’t feel like shoes. It feels so near, like my skin. How do you shed something that close, that alive?

Still, I cling to the verse. I tell myself: a time to weep, a time to laugh. A time to love, a time to let go. A time to hold close, a time to release. I don’t know which one this is yet.

This is also just a phase… right?