Out of Season

Life …

Many people have recorded their versions of that word.

Life.

It has many stories.

Like seasons that overlap, never arriving neatly, never leaving all at once.

The ones written down.

The ones passed on through advice and caution, like weather reports from people who survived their own storms.

And the ones we learn ourselves, every day, as we live in it, standing in currents we didn’t choose.

We’ve all had something to say about that word.

At some point.

Based on what we’ve seen.

Based on what we’ve gone through.

Based on which seasons broke us and which ones passed gently.

But sometimes I wonder about people.

Why we meet some people and we click — nicely, beautifully — without trying.

It just happens.

Conversation is easy.

Being around each other doesn’t feel forced, like moving with a current instead of against it.

Some of these connections move into another stage.

They become close.

They become inseparable.

Like two bodies drifting in the same direction, held by the same flow.

Years pass like that.

Season after season.

Everyone already assumes they are partners for life.

It almost feels settled.

Like the weather has chosen its pattern and won’t change.

Then, after years, they separate.

The current shifts.

Quietly.

Without warning.

And what follows is what confuses me.

Almost immediately, they are married.

To someone they only saw briefly.

Someone they didn’t spend years with.

Someone who arrived in a different season, when the water was already calmer.

So I start asking questions.

Was the earlier connection an illusion?

Was it real, but only meant for that particular season?

Did it belong to who they were then, not who they became?

It’s hard to understand how something can take years and still end,

how a long season can still give way,

while something new can arrive and stay,

as if the current had been waiting for the right moment to settle.

And then there are the others.

The people we meet and don’t like — not because they’ve done anything to us.

Nothing obvious.

Nothing we can explain.

There is no conflict.

No history.

Just resistance.

Like swimming against a current that refuses to carry us.

Like standing in a season that doesn’t belong to us, no matter how long we stay.

We try to make sense of it.

We question ourselves.

We look for reasons.

But sometimes there are none.

Some people enter our lives out of season.

Some arrive when the current isn’t meant to hold them.

Not because they are bad.

Not because we are wrong.

But because timing is doing what it always does — deciding without asking.

It makes me question what we think we know about life.

About timing.

About connection.

About permanence.

Maybe not everything that feels strong is meant to be permanent.

Maybe not everything that lasts is meant to last forever.

Maybe some people are meant to move with us only while the current allows it.

Or maybe life doesn’t always give reasons.

Maybe it just changes seasons.

Maybe it just shifts the water beneath our feet.

And we’re left trying to understand it afterward,

looking back at who walked with us, who drifted away, and who never entered our current at all.

And sometimes we meet people we don’t like from the beginning.

Not because they’ve harmed us.

Not because they’ve said the wrong thing.

Just a quiet knowing.

The current doesn’t take.

The season doesn’t open.

We may stay polite.

We may try.

We may wait for understanding to arrive.

But the resistance remains.

Not sharp.

Not hostile.

Just unmoving.

And with time, we learn that not every connection is meant to form.

Some people are never meant to flow with us.

Some seasons were never meant to include them.

Not everything needs fixing.

Not everything needs explanation.

Some things simply don’t align — and that, too, is part of life.