You may have noticed a shift in the weather lately. It’s that time of year when I start to debate which jacket to wear in the morning on my way out the door…Is it a vest day, or do I need a heavier jacket, or {gasp} is it time for an actual coat? I’ve been wearing the vest for about three weeks. I’m not quite in the coat frame of mind yet. But this time of year makes me acutely aware that before long, winter will be upon us. And it will be cold.

It’s easy to get sucked into the desolation of winter…after a month or two of bundling up and starting the car 5 minutes before we need to leave, it begins to feel like an eternity since we felt warmth and sunlight… and at times it seems as though it might never get warm again.

The same holds true for relationships. When a relationship begins to turn cold, it feels much like winter is approaching… we long for the days when the sun shone down- the days when we felt secure, comfortable and optimistic. We pine for the days when we felt as though anything was possible and believed the days ahead were bright. And through the ups and downs of the “relationship aftermath”, at times we find ourselves, in a manner of speaking, in the “winter of our discontent”- lonely and cold, longing for the warmth that we found with that person, at least at one time. And it can feel like we might never find that again.

But without fail, the earth continues to rotate and winter eventually dissolves into spring. And just as the seasons change, after one relationship ends and the clouds lift, new people enter our lives. And if we’re lucky, one or two of them remind us that there are amazing souls out there who we will connect to in ways we weren’t expecting, in ways we can’t quite explain, in ways that are both familiar and new all at once.

And I know {without a doubt} that it WILL get warm again.