Fall tastes like sweet potato pie, like the perfect combination of vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon on a homemade crust.

Fall smells like pumpkin spice candles and left over mac and cheese when I open my fridge the day after Thanksgiving. Fall feels like fallen leaves cracking beneath my ankle boots, like a caramel apple latte warming my hands. Fall looks like red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves twirling to the ground and creating a beautiful masterpiece right outside my door.

Fall sounds like laughter, as family and friends get together and poke fun with one another — the kind of laughter that makes you get out of your seat, run across the room and fall on the floor, holding your belly full of two plates of food until the laughter turns into hot tears. Fall is a casual unpacking of childhood trauma around the dinner table, a stirring of grief as you reminisce about all the people that should be there but aren’t. It’s a bitter sweetness on your tongue as their names and stories escape your lips. Fall is a confirmation of boundaries set, a reminder of where you came from, a glimpse of where you are going.

For me, fall will always remind me of the last time I saw my mother — the last time she kissed me and told me she would be back soon, said I love you, but never returned. Fall is a reminder of when I had to learn to become a woman without her. However, fall will also always be a reminder of the crisp day my husband and I held hands and exchanged vows beneath a cloud-filled sky. A day we both had to learn to die — a beautiful death, like these leaves — to self and to ego, in submission to God and to one another. Fall will always remind me of the day I took a pregnancy test and couldn’t wait to share with my husband the news that God had blessed us with a second bundle of joy.

Fall, despite its death, is a season I feel most alive. Fall is when I rise, return to myself, rest, reflect, and prepare. It’s a season of hope, of knowing that I will see the flowers bloom again and feel the sun smiling down on my skin soon. It’s a season of falling on my knees to pray and seek God’s face and ask Him for the direction I need going into the new year. Fall is a season of falling in love with myself all over again, every dip and curve of my body, and not restricting her from enjoying peach cobbler on Thanskgiving just because the number on the scale isn’t what the world tells her it should be.

Fall is a falling away from people, places, and things that do not serve me. Falling out of bad habits, a season of harvest where blessings seem to be falling right into my lap. Fall is for falling asleep, for resting, peacefully, and not allowing anxious thoughts to wake me up in the wee hours of the morning. Fall is for family, friends, food for the soul, feelings, and faith.

This fall, I am feeding my mind, body, and spirit by being fully present and noticing God’s presence. This fall, I’m falling into the arms of the people that love me most. I am grateful not just for this season, but for every season God allows me to see.