Making Space for What We Feel When Something Ends

I’ve noticed that I am a little sad that summer is ending.

It’s a feeling not attached to anything that makes a ton of sense for me in the moment, but I’m noticing an external shift.

The kids are going back to school. The traffic is changing. The rhythm of the city is shifting. And I find myself wondering whether some part of me is resonating with the end of summer as a loss.

There is something very particular about the end of summer and American life. We learn it almost before we have words for it.

As children, summer is expansive: no school, longer days, more freedom, vacations, sleeping in, and a sense that time has somehow opened up.

And then, suddenly, there’s a date on the calendar when it ends.

We fall back into line. The expansive days give way to schedules, structure, and expectations.

Backpacks appear. Schedule return. The mornings feel different. The rhythm changes.

And even as adults, some little part of us may still register:

Oh. It’s over.

I find myself wondering:

Do we carry the emotional imprint of those childhood summers with us?

Maybe the sadness isn’t only about this summer ending. Maybe it’s also connected to the accumulated experience of endings- the countless little transitions we’ve moved through throughout our lives.

We tend to celebrate beginnings and endings very differently.

We celebrate:

• Birthdays
• Graduations
• Weddings
• New jobs
• New relationships
• New chapters

Beginnings are filled with anticipation and possibility.

But endings are often treated as something to get over quickly— to talk about less, minimize, or move past before we’ve really had a chance to feel what they mean.

We move on.

We get back to work.

We “get over it.”

We start planning what’s next.

But nature doesn’t seem to hurry through transitions.

There is a gradual shift from one season to another. The light changes. The air changes. The rhythms of life change.

There is a period of in-between—a liminal space where one thing is over, but the next thing has not yet begun.

And perhaps our inner lives have seasons, too.

There are times when we are expanding, reaching outward, creating, connecting, and moving toward something new.

And there are other times when something is ending, changing, or asking to be released.

Maybe we don’t have to rush through the in-between.

And maybe the tenderness we feel at an ending is simply part of being human—not evidence that something is wrong.

Perhaps we can let ourselves notice the sadness.

Let ourselves appreciate what it was.

And give ourselves enough space to wonder what this next season my bring.

Warmly,
Dr. Eva Altobelli