A life in seasons

01 Sep 2025

I remember the first time I saw snow. I remember watching snowflakes as they danced daintily, as they waltzed through my window. I remember the light in my eyes—my wide-eyed wonder. I remember snowflakes falling softly and melting in my hand. I remember the first time I saw snow—the same time my son first saw snow—when he was only three and I, past thirty.

I grew up with sun and rain, with hot, hotter, wet and wetter. In a place where sometimes, as has been the weather of late, we cycle between insufferable heat (and humidity) and thunderstorms.

For most of my life, I never had an actual understanding of seasons.

It was only after my stay abroad, past the age of thirty, that I experienced what it is to live life through the seasons. To change my wardrobe over the course of the year and get my money's worth from my winter coat. To experience the passage of time in the bloom and fade of spring flowers, through summer's scorching heat and in the crunch of fall leaves and bare winter trees covered in a blanket of snow. To snap up asparagus from the supermarket when they make their brief appearance and see the splash of orange when the pumpkins and squash show up in fall. To feel that sense of disorientation twice a year whenever the clocks would go forward and back.

For most of my life, I had always measured life in time.

I tagged my life to dates and events, to the markers in life that felt significant—the start of a new year, the end of the one before, birthdays, anniversaries—always hoping yet again for that new beginning where I would finally attain my perfect life. To be frank, the always sunshine-and-rainbows, uphill-with-never-a-dip-in-the-graph, not-a-thing-out-of-place-showroom kind of life that I envisioned would have likely been insipid, terribly dull and never make for inspired writing. Yet I clung to this lie as it was the only way I knew to live, the only way I knew to find a semblance of peace. But it always ended in disappointment. I could never get my life in order on time, and the deadlines would roll around, my life still a mess.

But seeing life in seasons and measuring my life in seasons—the one word that jumped out at me some weekends ago—has brought me a new perspective that has made all the difference. Somehow, beyond my understanding, it has given me the peace to accept the ups and downs of an imperfect life, knowing that there is a season and time for everything, and that there is life even in the dead of winter. Bad stuff still happens. And I still get upset. But it no longer feels like failure, and I don't feel the need to wipe the slate clean or reset the game so I can start anew.

Ironically, the new beginning that I so desperately sought for came only after I had finally stopped seeking it. I sense it now, a different spirit—I am entering a new season. I see it in the way I have grown in recent months after years of stagnation. I feel it in the growing understanding of who I am and who I can be. I know it in the breakthroughts that come not in dramatic changes, but in gradual shifts in the way that I think, act and feel.

For years, there were just so many things that I could not change about myself—not for lack of trying—so many parts that I simply could not fix. And yet, for reasons I cannot explain, I have now come to a point of being able to cease striving, to rest, to be—to a point of acceptance.

Just the other day, a quick glance at my hands got me thinking about the time in my childhood when I used to cut my nails too deep. Back then, I was always bothered by the whites of my nails and what I felt were the much too-long pinks. I used to cut my nails obsessively, almost every other day, forcing my nails away from the nailbed and cutting as deep as I could go. My fingers stung perpectually back then, but it was always worth the pain to me. I can't remember the point when I started letting go of this obsession with my nails. And till today, though I still keep my nails short, I no longer cut them too deep.

To come to a point of acceptance. To accept the natural shape of things. To stop fighting and to start flowing. To choose not the life that I want, but the life that I need. To understand that I just might be a finicky plant that requires a different set of watering and care instructions, and that though my growth might look different from others, I can still thrive.

I cleared out nearly my entire book collection recently, and I've been chipping away at the mammoth task of decluttering my home whenever I've found the motivation. It's a little strange how I've managed to find the heart to let go of many things that I've held on to for so many years of my life, things that I have once greatly cherished. In the process, I've found that letting go, while painful, seems to make way for something new.

I've always been prone to holding on, to memories, to past selves—lost in time and feeling the loss of time. I came across a letter from a classmate for my sixteenth birthday. She was my deskmate, and from her letter (and not my memory), it was only after a switch in seats midway through the year that we ended up being seated together. Her note was gushing, and she wrote about keeping in touch even after the year ended and when we would all graduate and part ways. I remember joining our tables during A Math lessons, to the chagrin of our teacher (our class was notorious in the level), chatting away and laughing till our sides ached. I remember growing apart from her and her twin sister (who was my labmate). I remember how it just wasn't the same anymore. I remember contacting one of them after a dream in my twenties and feeling so embarrassed after. Because I realised that the feeling wasn't mutual.

And I've finally come to an understanding that friendships and relationships have their seasons. And that sometimes, a relationship that we have can only exist in that environment for that time. It's like the countless heart-to-heart connections I made at camps and trips that could never continue into something more. Yet for a while, in that shared space and time together, in the late-night conversations in the dark and quiet, we had a genuine connection that felt so precious. There's just something about the night that draws us deeper.

And yet, the "we" we had could only exist in that moment, because of where we were in that time and place, because of who you were back then and because of who I was. I used to be the one who was always holding on to friendships long after the other party had moved on. And I'd always feel deeply disappointed whenever I came to those moments of awakening, when reality hits me that unless I reached out yet again, they never would. It was a bitter pill to swallow. They held on to other friendships, but why not me? Why not me?

If only I knew then that not all friendships are meant for life, perhaps I would not have had to suffer the feelings of inadequacy that I did back then. It's just life—life that does not always take the shape that you choose. Like some of the online friendships that I forged that to my great regret could not translate into real life, when our easy banter and heart-to-heart over MSN was lost to awkward pauses and silence in reply.

Or this one friendship that I now see slipping away in spite of our somewhat frequent meeting. There was a time when we were so close in our twenties, where we'd meet to talk for hours and hours and hours. She was even my bridesmaid. And yet, here we are today, with conversations that feel to me like ones that I would have with an acquaintance. Perhaps we had become different people. I know for certain that I have. Still, the loss always hits me hard.

Which is why recognising that some friendships are for a season is making it easier for me to learn to let go. In knowing that not all friendships are meant to last forever, I can begin to cherish the moments we shared in that special season of our lives, to accept the change and loss that time brings and to carry on.

And I believe a big part of being able to carry on is found in another word that has been gifted to us in this season, the word "contentment". I find the Chinese word for it especially meaningful. 知足, where zhī means "to know" and zú means "enough", the word essentially means to know that you have enough. And this is something that we are beginning to learn together as a family. Whether it is my husband finally choosing meaning in work over an iron rice bowl. Whether it is learning to live with messy and forgetful me. And whether it is finally accepting that a season in my life is over.

The other day, I scooped up the last of my Haarbalsam Winter Protect that I got from dm and threw it in the bin. I felt the finality of the moment, closing the chapter that was my life in W. I don't pine for W the way I did before. I've grown accustomed to life here. And I've swallowed the bitter pill that it wouldn't be the same even if I could go back, and that I have changed.

And though I have been seeking to choose contentment, I can see clearly that the road to practising this is long ahead. In some ways, I don't desire many things, and yet, can I truly say that I am contented with my life circumstances and the person that I am? But that is what I aspire to, to make peace with my life, to make peace with me, to find contentment in all my corners.¹

And now after all this stagnating, I think I can finally see my spring.²