DORÉ

I always thought my season of choice was Fall, but I recently realized that was for a very narcissistic and wrong reason. My birthday is in November so I just assumed Fall must be my jam because it’s my birthday season. BUT, I must clarify: I am not someone who celebrates their birthday for an entire season. (Don’t be that person, just don’t. No one is important enough for a birthday month or even week) I barely celebrate it even on the day itself, typically taking a day of vacation so I can hide in a cave and mull on the passage of time, I.E. MY DEATH.

See, getting old doesn’t scare me, but death does. I’ve given myself permission to grow old. Yes, I will get old whether I give myself permission or not — but, dare I say you can tell which women give themselves the permission to age, and those that don’t. The perception of age will not change until women give themselves the permission to do so.

Okay, but back to death.

I am a thirty-two year old woman who does not like the concept of death (do you see how I used “concept” there — because I don’t even like saying “death” without some sort of qualifier). And unfortunately, death has been following me around a bit lately — I’ve had to attend my fair share of funerals this spring.

Attending a funeral during spring is a funny thing. You are surrounded by nature that is coming back to life, growing green again, yet you’re grappling with and mourning death. It’s no surprise that so many funeral scenes in movies take place in the pouring rain. While it might be cliche, rain suits better than having tulips blooming graveside while the casket it being lowered.

Although — if you think about that tulip visual, is it not the epitome of hope?

Being a thirty-two year old woman, along with the funerals, I’ve had four close friends give birth this spring (thirty-somethings love to breed in the spring).

At first it was such a whiplash of emotions, until I tried to simply live with both simultaneously — holding both thoughts in my head, birth and death — and it gave me a hell of a lot of hope.

We’re going to take the month of May to deliver you some of that hope in the form of renewal. We’ll be re-committing to caring for ourselves in ways that make us feel renewed, and full of life. Because it is spring after all, the most hopeful time of the year and my new favorite season.