It feels like someone leaned on the fast-forward button for the last twenty years, doesn’t it? One minute you’re buying your first car, the next you’re looking at your kids’ college tuition bills, and the whole time the world is spinning faster and faster on the 24-hour news cycle. It’s enough to make you dizzy.

Whenever I feel that way, I think back to a quiet summer evening in Ohio, a long, long time ago. I was twelve, all knees and elbows, sitting on the porch swing next to my grandfather. The air was thick with the smell of cut grass and the sound of cicadas buzzing. He wasn’t a man of many words. He’d served in Korea, worked the same factory line for forty years, and believed you said what you meant, and that was that.

He finished his iced tea, set the glass down with a soft click, and looked out at the fields.

“Don’t get in a hurry, Mike,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “You blink, and you’ll wake up one day an old man, wonderin’ where your spring went.”

I remember rolling my eyes, the way a kid does. Spring was just Little League, mud on my new sneakers, and Mom yelling about grass stains on my jeans. It felt like it would last forever.

Now, with a whole lot more road behind me than in front of me, I finally understand what he was trying to say.

Spring — The Green Years

Spring is when you think you’re immortal. My spring smelled like gasoline from the lawnmower, chalk from the baseball diamond, and my grandmother’s kitchen. Time was a slow, lazy river. A summer vacation was an eternity. A school year was a lifetime. The future was a far-off country I’d visit someday.

Pops—that’s what we called him—would be in his rocker, watching the tulips push up through the dirt. He’d point with his chin and say, “That’s you, boy. All green. All new. Full of vinegar. Don’t rush it.”

But I did. Of course, I did. Every kid in America is taught to rush. Rush to grow up, rush to get ahead. In the background, the evening news was always murmuring about Vietnam or protests, but in our little world, the biggest worry was getting home before the streetlights came on. I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license, to get out of that small town, to start my real life.

Summer — The Long, Hot Burn

Summer was a blur of ambition and sweat. I was twenty-one, then thirty-one. It was the 80s and 90s, and the world was telling us to want more, do more, be more. I was hungry for a career, for a family, for a life that looked like the ones on TV. Life was a long, bright sunburn—you were either chasing the sun or feeling the burn from the day before.

I moved to the city, got a degree on student loans I’d be paying for years, and climbed a corporate ladder that seemed to have no top. I fell in love, got married, and bought a house with a thirty-year mortgage. It was the American dream, or so I was told.

I’d call Pops on Sundays. The connection would crackle. He’d listen to me talk about my job, my promotion, my deadlines. He’d always end the call the same way.

“The sun doesn’t ask for permission to shine, son. It just does. Don’t waste your daylight hours.”

I thought I had all the daylight in the world. I was too busy building a life to stop and actually live it.

Autumn — The Golden Hour

Then, without any grand announcement, the air started to cool.

I woke up one morning and saw a stranger in the mirror with gray hair at his temples. I had kids in the backseat of a minivan, soccer games on Saturdays, and a 401(k) that dipped and soared with the crazy moods of the stock market. The world felt a little less certain than it used to.

My autumn was a harvest. I was reaping everything I had planted in my spring and summer. Some of it was wonderful—the laughter of my children, the comfort of a long marriage. But some of it wasn’t what I’d planned. Careers shifted, friends moved away, and my own parents, once giants, were starting to look frail.

One evening, sitting on my own porch, I watched my son—all green and new—chasing fireflies. And it hit me so hard I felt my breath catch. I finally heard what Pops had tried to tell me all those years ago. Seasons don’t last. The leaves don’t ask permission to turn. They just do.

I felt the chill in the air and thought, “This is autumn. And in its own way, it’s beautiful.” It wasn’t the frantic heat of summer, but a quieter, wiser warmth.

Winter — The Quiet Fires

Winter belonged to Pops.

His hands, which had built and fixed so many things, grew thin. His steps became a slow shuffle. But he never grew bitter. If anything, he seemed lighter. He’d sit by the fire, his eyes clear, telling stories about his own spring and summer, about a world that was gone but lived on inside him. He’d seen the country change from black-and-white to color. He’d watched presidents come and go, wars start and end, and he’d found a peace that had nothing to do with the yelling on the cable news.

The last time I saw him, the snow was falling in thick, quiet flakes outside his window. He took my hand, his grip surprisingly firm.

“Don’t you be afraid of the snow, Mike,” he whispered. “It just makes the fire inside feel warmer. Every season is a gift. Even this one.”

He passed away a week later, as peaceful as that snowfall.

My Turn

Today, I’m deep in my own autumn. The leaves on my tree are turning brilliant shades of orange and red, and I feel both the beauty and the weight of it. My kids are living out their loud, crazy, beautiful spring, and I finally see the wisdom Pops was offering on that porch swing.

Life isn’t about trying to stay in summer forever or being terrified of the first frost of winter. It’s about being grateful for the season you’re in.

So this is what I’ve learned, what I think he was really saying all along:

Don’t rush your spring. That innocence is a treasure.

Don’t waste your summer. That strength is meant to be used.

Don’t fear your autumn. That wisdom is meant to be shared.

Don’t regret your winter. That peace is earned.

Because one day, you’ll be the one sitting on the porch, and a kid you love will be sitting next to you. And maybe you’ll find yourself saying the same words my grandfather said to me:

“Don’t just stand there and blink. Live in the season you’re in