When I sat down to write this month’s Karmic Chronicles, I realized I wasn’t writing the story I thought I would be. I had imagined sharing photos of a flourishing garden, talking about warm summer evenings spent planting flowers and herbs, and celebrating all of the little projects I had hoped to accomplish around our home. Instead, this season has been one of unexpected detours. It has been filled with quiet moments, difficult goodbyes, time spent in nature, and gentle reminders that life doesn’t always unfold according to our plans.
Looking back over the past few weeks, I can see that this season wasn’t asking me to build something beautiful outside – it was asking me to care for something much deeper within myself. Between financial challenges, the heartbreaking loss of my sweet Camo, saying goodbye to my grandmother, protecting my sobriety through one of the most emotionally difficult weeks I’ve faced in a long time, and finding unexpected comfort in the woods, this summer has become less about what I wanted to create and more about learning how to simply be present.
So, as I always do with these chronicles, I’m opening my heart and sharing this chapter exactly as it happened. If you’ve found yourself walking through a difficult season too, I hope you’ll know you’re not walking alone. Maybe somewhere in these words you’ll find a little comfort, just as I found mine in birds soaring overhead, butterflies dancing through the trees, and the quiet peace that only nature seems to know how to offer.
A Summer That Looked Different
After another long northern Maine winter, I found myself daydreaming about everything I wanted to accomplish once the warmer weather arrived. Every year I get excited about gardening, but this year felt especially exciting. I had plans for expanding my flower beds, adding more herbs to my garden, growing more vegetables, and creating little peaceful corners where I could sit outside with a cup of tea and enjoy the beauty around our home. In my mind, I had already pictured the colors, the scents, the buzzing bees, and the quiet evenings spent tending to everything I had planted.
As spring slowly turned into summer, reality began to look a little different than I had imagined. Like so many families right now, we’ve been feeling the rising cost of everyday life. Electricity has become more expensive, gas prices continue to fluctuate, and grocery bills seem to grow every time we walk through the store. When life’s necessities demand more of your income, the little extras naturally have to wait. While I would have loved to come home with trays of flowers and new plants every weekend, this simply wasn’t the year for that.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. There were moments when I caught myself looking at other people’s gardens and wishing I could do more with mine. Gardening has become more than just a hobby for me; it’s one of the ways I connect with nature, slow my mind, and feel grounded. It was difficult to accept that I couldn’t create everything I had envisioned this season.
The more time I spent thinking about it, however, the more I realized that gardens are never truly finished. Every perennial starts as something small. Every tree begins as a sapling. Every beautiful landscape is built little by little over time. Perhaps I had been putting too much pressure on myself to create everything at once instead of appreciating what I already have. My garden may not look the way I imagined this year, but it is still growing, just as I am.
Looking back now, I think this summer was gently reminding me that growth doesn’t always happen in the places we expect. While my gardens may have grown more slowly than I had hoped, something much deeper was quietly growing within me. I just didn’t realize it.
Saying Goodbye to Camo
As the weeks went on, I realized my summer wasn’t only changing because of postponed garden plans. It was changing because life was asking me to say goodbye once again.
On June 23, I made one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make as a pet owner. My sweet Camo, who was fourteen years old, had been battling hyperthyroidism. We had done everything we could to help her, and for a while she continued to enjoy the little things she always had. But as the days passed, it became clear that her little body was growing tired. Watching an animal you love begin to struggle is heartbreaking because you desperately want them to stay, even when you know they’re hurting.
Camo wasn’t just another pet to me. She was Muss’ sister, my second familiar, and another soul that has been by my side through so many chapters of my life. After losing Muss, I knew this day would eventually come, but knowing it doesn’t make it any easier when you’re finally standing in that moment. Loving our animals means carrying the responsibility of making the decision they cannot make for themselves, and although it broke my heart, I knew that letting her go peacefully was the greatest act of love I could offer her.
The ride home was quiet. My fiancé drove while I sat beside him trying to process everything that had just happened. I cried most of the way home, my thoughts circling around the same hope again and again.
“I hope she found Muss.”
“I hope they’re together.”
It wasn’t something I said out loud. It was simply the quiet conversation I was having within my own heart.
Almost as soon as those thoughts settled, I happened to look up through my passenger side window. High above us were two small birds flying together. They weren’t simply heading in the same direction – they were weaving through the sky, circling one another as though they were playing. I couldn’t take my eyes off them, and I watched until the road slowly carried us beyond them.
People experience moments like this differently. Some would see nothing more than two birds crossing the sky, while others might call it a sign. I’ve never felt the need to explain or prove these moments to anyone else. What matters is what they mean to the person experiencing them.
In that moment, something inside me became still. Deep in my spirit, I felt as though they had found each other.
Whether those two birds were simply birds or something more, they brought me exactly what I needed that afternoon: comfort. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes we don’t need every answer. We only need a gentle reminder that love continues long after goodbye, and that the bonds we share with those we love don’t simply disappear because we can no longer see them.
Finding Peace in the Woods
After the appointment, my fiancé knew I wasn’t ready to go straight home. Instead, he took me for a drive through the back roads and woods, somewhere quiet where there were no waiting rooms, no difficult decisions left to make, and no expectations of how I was supposed to feel. Sometimes there isn’t anything that can be said to make grief hurt less. Sometimes the greatest comfort is simply having someone sit beside you while you carry it.
We wandered through the trails for a while, and I found myself reaching for my camera every now and then. Nature has always been a place where I feel closest to myself, and that afternoon was no different. The fresh air, the towering pines, and the familiar sounds of the forest seemed to soften the heaviness I had been carrying. Before we headed home, my fiancé picked me a small bouquet of wildflowers. It was such a simple gesture, but it meant more to me than he probably realized. Those little flowers became a reminder that even on the hardest days, kindness still has a way of finding us.
A few days later, June 30th, we decided to go exploring again, this time hiking to a quiet brook tucked away in the woods. It was just the two of us and the sounds of nature around us. The water gently flowed over the rocks, birds called from somewhere high in the trees, and for the first time in several days, I felt my shoulders begin to relax. It wasn’t about escaping grief. It was about giving myself permission to breathe alongside it.
Before we left the house that morning, I found myself holding Muss’ urn necklace in my hand. I took it off to put on some sunscreen. I paused for a moment and wondered if I should wear it, just in case. Something told me to bring him with me on this little adventure. Muss loved being outside. He loved watching birds from the windows, rolling in the grass, and exploring every corner of the yard. Since Camo hadn’t yet been returned home to us, I quietly smiled to myself and thought that although I could only carry Muss with me physically, I knew they would be both walking beside me in spirit.
As we were walking in a meadow from the woods we were about to enter, two beautiful orange butterflies appeared. They fluttered around us, dancing effortlessly through the warm summer air before circling back into the trees. I stopped what I was doing just to watch them. It immediately brought me back to those two little birds I had seen after saying goodbye to Camo. Once again, I felt that same quiet sense of peace settle over me.
I’ve often said that I believe we each experience the world in deeply personal ways. What one person sees as coincidence, another may experience as something sacred. I don’t feel the need to explain moments like these or convince anyone else of what they should believe. I simply know how they made me feel. During one of the most difficult weeks of my life, nature seemed to wrap its arms around me again and again, offering small moments of comfort exactly when I needed them most.
Whether it was two birds soaring across the sky or two butterflies dancing a woodland brook, those moments reminded me that healing doesn’t always arrive through words. Sometimes it arrives through stillness, through fresh air, and through the quiet feeling that love continues to surround us, even in the midst of loss.
A Week of Reflection
The week had already been set aside from my work because just a few days after saying goodbye to Camo, my family gathered to celebrate the life of my grandmother during her memorial and burial. Looking back now, I don’t think I could have planned that time off any better even if I had tried. At the time, it was simply a break from writing, but life has a way of knowing what we need before we do.
It became one of quietest weeks I’ve had in a long time. There were no deadlines to meet, no pressure to keep creating, and no expectation that I needed to be productive every moment of the day. Instead, I found myself slowing down. I spent time meditating, sitting outside, wandering through nature, and allowing myself to simply feel everything that had happened instead of trying to rush past it.
Saying goodbye to my grandmother was its own kind of grief. She had lived a full life, and although we knew the day would eventually come, there is something about gathering with family, sharing memories, and laying someone to rest that makes the reality settle into your heart. It reminded me how precious our time together truly is and how important it is to cherish the people we love while they’re still here in this world.
As someone who loves to write, stepping away from my website felt strange. My notebook sat nearby, ideas still wandered through my mind, and there were moments when I thought I should be working on my next article. Instead, I chose to listen to something I often encourage others to do but don’t always remember to do myself – I gave myself permission to rest.
Aside from sharing a few small updates on Facebook and Instagram, I let myself be quiet. I stopped worrying about algorithms, schedules, and what I “should” be posting. The articles could wait. My readers would understand. What mattered most was taking care of my heart, my mind, and my spirit.
It’s funny how often we talk about self-care as though it’s something we add to our calendars, when in reality it sometimes looks like doing less instead of more. It looks like sitting beside a brook without checking the time. It looks like talking a walk simply because the trees make you feel safe. It looks like saying no to productivity for a little while and yes to healing.
When I look back on that week, I don’t remember accomplishing very much in the traditional sense. My gardens weren’t finished, my to-do list didn’t get shorter, and my website didn’t grow. But something else did. I became more present. I allowed myself to grieve without wishing through it, and I was reminded that healing is never wasted time. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is simply give ourselves permission to pause.
Choosing Myself Again
This past week also marked another milestone in my life – one year and six months sober from alcohol. Reaching that point feels surreal in many ways because there was a time when I couldn’t imagine making it through difficult moments without drinking. Alcohol had become my way of numbing pain, quieting my thoughts, and avoiding emotions that felt too heavy to carry.
Grief has a way of testing us, though.
Losing Camo, laying my grandmother to rest, and carrying the weight of both of those goodbyes in the same week stirred up emotions I hadn’t felt in a long time. There were moments when my mind wandered back to old habits. Not because I truly wanted to drink, but because my brain remembered that there was once a time when alcohol seemed like an escape. Recovery has taught me that those thoughts done mean I’ve failed – they’re simply reminders of who I used to be and how I used to cope.
The difference today is that I have new ways of caring for myself.
Instead of reaching for a bottle, I reached for nature. I reached for meditation. I leaned on my fiancé. I cried when I needed to cry. I sat with my grief instead of trying to outrun it. None of those things took the pain away completely, but they allowed me to move through it honestly instead of burying it.
As difficult as this season has been, I’m incredibly proud of the life I’ve built over the last year and a half. Sobriety hasn’t removed hardship from my life. It hasn’t prevented loss or heartbreak. What it has done is give me the opportunity to experience those moments with a clear mind and an open heart. It has taught me that healing isn’t about avoiding pain – it’s about trusting yourself enough to walk through it.
Looking back now, I can honestly say that choosing sobriety has been one of the greatest acts of self-love I’ve ever given myself. Every difficult day I move through without alcohol reminds me why I started this journey in the first place. My health matters. My mental well-being matters. My relationships matter. My future matters. Even on the hardest days, those things are worth protecting.
If anyone reading this is struggling, whether you’re fighting addiction, carrying grief, or simply trying to make it though another difficult season, I hope you’ll remember that progress isn’t measured by whether life becomes easy. It’s measured by the choices we make when life becomes hard. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is simply wake up the next morning and choose ourselves all over again.
Until the Next Chapter
As I sit here finishing this journal entry, I can’t help but smile at how differently this summer has unfolded from the one I imagined all those months ago. I thought I would be writing about gardens bursting with flowers, herbs hanging to dry, and weekends spent planting until the sun disappeared behind the trees. Instead, I’ve found myself writing about grief, healing, quiet adventures, and learning to slow down.
The funny thing is, I don’t think this season has been any less meaningful because it looked different. If anything, it has reminded me that life isn’t measured by how many things we accomplish or how closely reality matches the picture we’ve created in our minds. Sometimes the most important seasons are the ones that ask us to pause, to reflect, and to care for ourselves with the same kindness we so freely offer to others.
I’ve also been reminded that nature has a remarkable way of meeting us where we are. Whether it was the two birds I saw after saying goodbye to Camo, the butterflies dancing around us at the brook, the quiet strength of the forest, or the wildflowers my fiancé picked for me on a difficult day, each moment seemed to arrive exactly when my heart needed a little reassurance. I don’t pretend to know why these moments happen, nor do I think they need an explanation. I simply know they brought me peace, and sometimes peace is the greatest gift we can receive.
My garden may not be everything I dreamed it would be this year, but that’s alright. The flowers can wait until another season. There will be more springs, more summers, and more opportunities to plant the seeds I’ve been saving. Life isn’t a race to finish everything at one. Some dreams bloom slowly, and perhaps that makes us appreciate them even more when they finally do.
If you’ve found your own plans changing this year, I hope you’ll be gentle with yourself. If you’re grieving someone you love, struggling financially, carrying the weight of anxiety, protecting your sobriety, or simply feeling like life hasn’t been fair lately, please know that you are not alone. It is okay to rest. It is okay to cry. It is okay to step away from your responsibilities for a little while if your heart needs time to heal. There is strength in asking for help, strength in slowing down, and strength in choosing yourself, even when it’s difficult.
I truly believe that every season of our lives leaves something behind. Some leave us with beautiful memories, some leave us with difficult lessons, and some quietly reshape us in ways we don’t fully understand until much later. While I would never have chosen many of the things that have happened this summer, I know they have reminded me to appreciate the people I love, to trust my own spirit, and to keep moving forward with hope, even when the path feels uncertain.
So for now, I’ll keep tending the little garden I do have. I’ll keep walking the woodland trails that bring me peace. I’ll keep writing when inspiration returns, resting when I need to, and believing that brighter days will always find their way back to us.
Thank you for spending a little piece of your day with me and for allowing me to share this chapter of my life. Whether you are in your own journey, I hope you remember that even after the longest winters and the hardest seasons, life has a beautiful way of blooming again.
Until next time,
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