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Winter has finally surrendered to spring. It was a mighty battle.

I am writing this the day before the solar eclipse and am feeling it all—you might be too. I guess it’s a double whammy with the retrograde and all but what do I know?

What I know is that things in this world seem to be happening fast. It feels like life is going at warp speed right now.

Spring has brought love in the air, and everywhere I turn I see the budding of new romance and the shattering of the old. This can be triggering, even at the best of times. But I have paused romance and love and working on writing, friendships, and finding my way after the resurfacing of yet another traumatic event.

My dear friend says, “You can’t keep marching through trauma after trauma. You need to pause and heal.” Sometimes marching through is survival though. The pause is a scary thing often not accepted in society. We feel the need to be constantly doing and achieving, and sometimes that is an act of survival.

Love in the spring is a trigger for me. It brings up memories of the time I lived with a man dealing with undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Spring meant the glimmer in his eyes shone a little too brightly, his mood and sleep changed, and mania would wreak its havoc. I can’t go a spring without thinking about it, even though time has passed and I think I should be over everything.

Seasons are markers for memories, and even though I am making new ones and experiencing new traumas, those early ones still hit the hardest.

I get what my friend is saying—truly I do—however, we all march through traumas. Some are just more impactful than others. I know mine have certainly built up, and a coping mechanism that I had was to turn the page and write a new story. Facing our past and processing it is a hard thing, and living it again and again is another. Most of my literary work has been about grief, trauma, and healing but we can’t write or read our way out of trauma, this I know firsthand. We can lean into it so perhaps marching through trauma can look a little different than trying to run a race.

This isn’t an ordinary love story or piece about how life will never be the same. The purpose of this article is to remind us that there will be many opportunities to heal. We are not failures for beginning again or taking a pause to heal because healing isn’t linear—it can be daunting, painful, and confusing. And lastly, there will be love in all shapes and forms coming into our life as love is the universal energy of the universe, the opposite of fear.

Life after trauma does change us, and change is inevitable. But there is also post-traumatic growth, which for many is transformative and positively changes us. Remind yourself that just because you feel like you are taking a few steps back doesn’t mean you are back where you started. The pause is a great gift we can give ourselves.

Marching through trauma looks different for everyone and sometimes it isn’t just pushing through. Sometimes it is allowing ourselves to finally feel. Starring at the celestial sky during a solar eclipse is a great reminder of the infinite power of creation, a reminder that we are constantly changing. The moon can block the sun and its glorious rays for a moment—and when it passes, we are again renewed by the sun and experience healing, if we just take the time to be.

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