As I sit here writing this post, the end of my season is rapidly approaching. It is as if the weather knows that endings are coming, giving us cold days and dark mornings. The station has grown quite quiet as our numbers rapidly dwindle. Our team of seven is now just a team of three. The mice are invading our house to escape the cold and our heater makes our house sing a rumbling lullaby.

I have always found the changing of the seasons to be an apt metaphor for times of transition. The cyclical nature of the seasons mirrors the way each ending is a beginning. As summer leaves us and fall prepares us for the cold winter ahead, I can’t help but look back on how much my life has changed in the last six months.

I started this job having just finished my undergraduate degree. I was filled with the fear of not knowing what is ahead, like it was too dark to see what was right in front of my face. Now I am faced again with not knowing, but I feel ready to free fall into the darkness.

When I started this job I was full of excitement and nerves, I had no idea what to expect. Throughout college my passion for plants grew like a vine spreading to every part of my life. Now I feel as though that passion has blossomed leaving me with a sense of sureness about what I want to do with my life. I love plants. I love the way they grow. I love the way they cope with every changing conditions. I love learning what each plant is and what makes it unique. I love what we can learn about life and death from plants.

I am so grateful to have spent this season doing work about something I am so passionate about. I have learned so much and yet it is only the beginning of what is a long and twisting road ahead of me. I sit here not knowing what is next in my life, but there is a sort of comfort in the unknown. The only constant I will ever find in my life is change and I welcome that. The choices are all mine and there is no right or wrong choice, only the choice I make.

I will miss Montana, but my East Coast heart aches for the place I have always called home. I will soon say my sorrowful goodbyes to this big and beautiful state. I am ready to return to Massachusetts where the people are unfriendly and cold, but where my heart feels so warm. I will stare out at the vastness of the ocean and think of Montana and the wide open spaces.

Nearly all the plants have dropped their seeds reflecting the ending that is just a whisper away. When I first arrived everything was in bloom and the hope of spring was all around us. As the season has gone on and the plants have fruited and seeded changing the environment around us I couldn’t help but feel as though I was growing and changing with them. Now as the trees and perennials begin their dormancy for winter, I too prepare for the next cycle of my life.