who we become in the dark

we’re all still letting go right?…right?!?

Reaching, even when the light feels far away.

Hi friends,

Are we all still letting go?
(Please say yes…)

If last month was about acknowledging that letting go can feel like shit (and still count), this is about what happens next.

At this point we’re standing in the pitch dark, waiting for the light to catch up and our eyes to adjust.

I want to begin by honoring how heavy things feel right now. As I’ve shared, I’ve felt it too: a quiet, persistant weight. In my own mind I think of this as the burden of being alive. It does not disappear, but how we carry it can change.

Suffering is not something to romanticize, but it does shape us. The sleepless nights, the unraveling, the uncertainty all become part of what forms us. This is not a version of ourselves that needs to be seen or praised, but something more raw and honest. Something that shows us who we are when things feel dim or unclear.

I reread Man’s Search for Meaning every autumn. Viktor Frankl writes that suffering changes when it finds meaning. I do not take that as a call to force a silver lining, to manufacture gratitude or positivity for the shit sandwich in front of us. It feels more like an invitation to pay attention to what is being formed in us through what we would never choose.

What if this ache is also a call toward meaning? Toward refinement?

As Dr. Douglas Brooks suggests, character isn’t about perfection or achievement at all. Character isn’t a thing that we possess, a destination in which we arrive; it’s seomthing we practice. It’s about learning to live well enough to keep asking: Who do I want to be in this?

As we move into November, with its dark mornings and early dusk,
I’m remembering: I am still becoming. We all are. We can carry the weight of being alive and still make space—for meaning, for kindness, for our own and others’ rough edges.

This season, may we keep letting go of what’s outlived its place and grow softer,
not smaller, in the process.