Four Seasons of Solitude

Twenty years ago, one of my mentors, Father Paul—a wise, gentle priest from a Catholic community in northern Ontario—shared something with me that I never forgot.

We must have been talking about marriage and the gravity of committing your life to someone, because he said:

“You should date someone through all four seasons—an entire year—before deciding.”

At the time, I assumed he meant a partner. But life has a way of circling back. After ending my nearly ten-year marriage at the start of 2024, his words returned to me in the most unexpected way.

I realized I had never really been single. From my teens onward, I had leapt from one relationship to the next, searching for worthiness in the eyes of another, chasing belonging in someone else’s arms. I had no idea who I was apart from that chase.

And so, I made a vow: I would date myself through all four seasons. I would let the earth teach me how to live, to love, to let go.

What followed was not just a year of solitude, but a rite of passage.

—

The first month of summer felt like both heartbreak and resurrection. My heart was cracked wide open, and yet I was alive in ways I hadn’t been in decades.

I blasted music and danced barefoot in my living room. I hiked mountains, paddle-boarded across still waters, biked through gorgeous forest terrain and ran with the sun on my face. I ate more ice cream than I had in my entire adulthood combined, and I laughed with friends old and new under star-filled skies.

I ripped around in my Jeep convertible, rocking ruby rouge in honour of my mama—with wild, windblown hair and felt something stir: joy that belonged to me alone. Shame-free, bikini-clad, barefoot in the grass, I felt myself breathing again.

Summer taught me freedom. That joy could be my own companion, not something borrowed from someone else’s presence.

—

Fall has always been my favorite. And this time, she came with her crisp winds and fiery colors, asking me to let go.

I walked long trails bundled in warm coats, sipping chai lattes and delighting in the quiet and stillness. I danced under amber skies and watched the leaves scatter, each one a reminder that I too was shedding layers I no longer needed.

Fall whispered to me that surrender wasn’t punishment—it was preparation. That letting go isn’t about losing, but about creating space. Every leaf that fell was practice in trust.

Fall taught me release. That surrender can be sacred, even safe.

—

Winter arrived, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t resist her.

I turned down an expense-paid trip to the tropics and instead chose to stay with the cold, the dark, the quiet. I burrowed into what I called The Den of Adullam—a cave of blankets and candlelight in my own basement—and let myself break.

Night after night, I curled up in that den and met myself in the silence. I asked God questions I didn’t have language for. I cried. I listened. I let the stillness wrap itself around me like a cloak and realized she no longer scared me.

Something I’d always longed for, I found there: to be held, without condition. Not by a man. Not by a relationship. But by the Presence itself.

Winter taught me worthiness. That even in death and darkness, I am loved.

—

And then, as she always does, spring came.

The birds returned, blossoms pushed through the soil, and I felt my own heart thaw. I moved my body again—walking, dancing, biking, writing. I felt creativity rise like sap in the trees.

Spring carried me like a promise: that life always returns, that hope always follows surrender. She reminded me that what feels like an ending is never the end.

Spring taught me renewal. That there is always more life waiting to burst forth.

—

What I nearly forgot at the end of spring was that I technically had two months left of summer to complete.

June came with Maui—a trip to celebrate my singleness. It was there that I crowned myself with a new name: Ava Soleil. A promise to live in the sunshine.

I drove an electric blue mini cooper convertible down the Road to Hana, feasted on poke bowls and shaved ice, swam in waterfalls, and learned to body surf with my new gay BFF, Jeffrey. I said yes to a medicine journey with a beautiful soul. I relished the warmth, the gorgeous men, the music, the feasts, the sheer aliveness of being.

Maui was a coronation. A gratitude ritual for Tamara, the name I had carried until then, and a celebration of stepping into the woman I had always been becoming.

Summer again taught me belonging. That I am already home in my own skin.
—

By the end of four seasons, I understood what Father Paul meant—but I also understood what he could never have known:

Dating myself through all four seasons wasn’t about loneliness. It was about love.

The four seasons purged from me the old pattern of chasing love. They taught me that solitude can be sanctuary, not sentence. That worthiness is not something I must find in someone else—it is something I already carry.

Father Paul was right: you should date someone through all four seasons before deciding. I just never realized that “someone” would be me.

And now, I choose me.

—

And the cool thing is this: arriving into worthy after these four seasons of solitude, I couldn’t be any more prepared for a next relationship, for a true life partner.

Perhaps one of the greatest blessings—and best kept secrets—is that once you purge your old patterns and stories, renegotiate the trauma energy stored in your body, and truly learn to love, appreciate, and respect the face you see in the mirror (and the company you keep in your own quiet moments), you realize something radical:

Intimate partnerships were never meant to be so hard.

What if the new story is that, once you’ve done the inner work, love can be easy? What if it can be fun, peaceful, steady? What if you can choose to spend life with someone from a place of fully alive? What if partnership is simply two people, imperfect yet aligned, walking side by side — not to fix or complete one another, but to share the joy of the journey?

Because God knows I’ve done a lot of hard. I’ve learned a ton. And now—it’s time for life in the sunshine. To relish in the simple mystery and beauty of it all. To be here, now.

And to have a partner that gets that too? Good Lord… that’s like winning the lottery a million times over, every single day. And the best part about being present? There is absolutely no rush for love! The one my soul loves is worth “waiting” for, although waiting doesn’t actually exist in the present moment—it’s more like living with a deep trust and knowing that my man will show up at the exact, perfect time, not a moment too soon or too late. Right on time.

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

- Derek Walcott

“Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
- C.S. Lewis