Seasons changing can be beautiful. But seasons changing can also be difficult.
This applies to any kind of season. When summer changed to autumn here in Pennsylvania, I was ready to feel the crisp air and see the colorful fall foliage. But it also meant an end to my son's summer break.
But there are other kinds of seasons. The final weeks of a baseball season can provide some of the most exciting moments of the year (I'm writing this the day after the Houston Astros won the American League pennant with a ninth-inning home run). However, this also means we are close to enduring five months without a meaningful game before Opening Day 2020.
More importantly, there are seasons in life. Seasons where you work at a certain job, and eventually, it is time to leave that position for a different place of employment. You're happy to get a higher salary or a better schedule, but at the same time, it is difficult to say goodbye to the co-workers who have become friends.
There is a season in life where your children live with you. But at some point, that season ends, whether it ends when those children turn eighteen or thirty-eight. You are happy to watch your sons and daughters prosper and to have your personal space back, but you also mourn for those special moments that you shared when you all shared the same roof.
Not everything is supposed to work in seasons. Your relationship with God and your spouse should last a lifetime. But many other things do. And one is your writing.
I am entering a new season in writing. My work in my second novel, tentatively entitled The Jewelry of Grace, is picking up and taking up more of my free time. Which means an old season is coming to an end: this blog.
I need to put more of my writing time into the next story, and that means that I can't be giving this blog the attention I have been giving it since February. I am happy to be creating a new book and that I will have the extra time to develop it. But I also will miss being able to use this blog to reach out to other writers, especially those who are still looking to get published and are seeking information on how to reach their goals.
But that's the thing about seasons: they come back around again.
There will be another summer, with another baseball season. They will not be the same as last summer or last baseball season, but they will return.
There will be another place to work, and there will eventually be grandchildren. The connections you make with you new co-workers and with the grandkids will be different from the relationships you have had before, but there will be a new season of friendships to be built.
And my blog will return, most likely once The Jewelry of Grace is ready for publication and I have the time again to do a blog correctly. It will be somewhat the same, sharing my experiences and giving little pieces of advice along the way. But I hope that it will also be different, because I hope I'm a different writer once I've finished a second book than I am today.
To everyone who has, is and will be supporting me on this writing journey, I thank you. And to you all, I hope to see you again soon.