On the first of October, I packed my life into a Uhaul, drove away from the Detroit skyline I came to love so much, and replanted myself in Brooklyn, New York, after what feels like a lifetime of dreaming about moving to New York City.

Every morning, I see the leaves on trees outside my window going through their seemingly on-schedule color change. Autumn is notorious for being a period of adjustment, as nature moves towards shedding all that bloomed and flourished in the previous seasons.

When I find myself in difficult transition periods of my life, I often forget how to process change. The reality is: every ounce of change that we experience requires a substantial amount of adaptation in ways we’ve never had to go about doing before. The heartache and pain that is usually paired with this is simply apart of the process, too. As we adjust to the decks we’re dealt, we learn to come around to the newness of our realities in a way that is comfortable to us. But this doesn’t happen overnight.

I eventually come back to the same conclusion that not all things in nature bloom year round. We go through our own seasons in the same ways the trees and flowers do.

It’s so essential to take a step back from the nagging expectations we put on ourselves to have it all together at once. This is a virtually impossible concept (unless you are Oprah), but once we come to accept that will we be able to find peace within our circumstances. And as it gets dark before it’s barely even dinner time, I’m learning to create light for myself from the people, places and things that bring me comfort, inspiration and love.

So much of Detroit still lives with me here in Bushwick. Maybe it’s the fact that almost all of my best friends uprooted their lives and came here over the past year, too. But it might also be that my time in Detroit shaped a lot of who I’ve become, reminding me to be gentle and kind to the process that is regrowth.

Fall in the city is a tune I want to hum to for all of ever.

A collection of songs that I constantly find myself accidentally fast walking (like, really fast walking) to.