Feral Fae Queen

Late 20s is a strange place to stand.

You look around and realize everyone is somewhere completely different. Someone is getting married. Someone is walking away from a years-long relationship. Someone is finishing school, someone is starting over, someone is having their first child. Someone is grieving a loss. Someone is celebrating a new beginning. Someone is traveling the world, someone is finally building a home.

Everyone is moving through life, but none of us are living the same story.

Same timeline. Different chapters.

And as I'm about to turn 30, I think I’m realizing there is a quiet grief that comes with leaving my twenties behind.

Not because I want to stay there, but because those years were so formative. They shaped me in ways I never could have predicted.

My twenties held so many versions of me. So many moments that changed me, broke me open, rebuilt me, and forced me to become someone I never expected to be.

There were endings I didn’t see coming. Beginnings I never planned for. Lessons I wish I could have learned easier. Memories I wouldn’t trade, even the painful ones, because they all led me here.

You don’t just leave an age behind. Sometimes you’re saying goodbye to entire versions of yourself.

Some people are beginning.

Some people are grieving.

Some are rebuilding.

Some are becoming.

And somehow, life just keeps moving.

We are all living inside this strange little simulation together, but none of us are playing the same game.

Every year, I wait for it, that first shift in the wind that smells like woodsmoke and rain. The first leaf that dares to surrender and spiral down, down, down to the waiting earth. Autumn doesn’t arrive with a shout. It never barges in or demands to be noticed. It slips into the world like a secret, like a truth we always knew but somehow forgot and the moment it’s here, everything inside me exhales.

This is the season where my soul feels most at home. The chaos of summer softens, the frantic pace of life slows, and the world itself seems to gather into a quieter rhythm. Mornings are cooler and linger longer. The sun no longer burns, it glows, low and golden, as if the sky itself has mellowed with age. The air smells of endings and beginnings braided together, sweet decay and woodfire, apples and earth, and gods, it just feels right.

There’s a steadiness to autumn that speaks to something deep and wordless in me. Maybe it’s the way the trees let go with such grace, no fight, no fear, just trust. They surrender everything they’ve built through the seasons, not because they’ve failed, but because they know this is how they thrive. There’s a wisdom in that I crave to emulate. To loosen my grip on what no longer serves me. To let myself shed without shame.

Yet, for all its melancholy, autumn never feels sad to me. It feels alive in a quieter, deeper way. The world is not dying, it’s deepening. It’s curling inward, preparing for the stillness ahead, tending its roots in silence, and so do I. The older I get, the more I understand that this season isn’t about endings at all, it’s about coming home to yourself. It’s about the beauty of stillness, the sanctity of slowness, the strength in softness.

I notice things in autumn I overlook the rest of the year. The way light pools in puddles after a rain. The sound of boots on damp earth. The tender hush just before the wind picks up and sends a flurry of leaves dancing. Even my thoughts feel different, less scattered, more deliberate. Like the season itself is teaching me how to breathe deeper, speak softer, be more fully.

I hate it when people say “my condolences.”

I hate “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

I hate how it sounds like something you're supposed to say, not something you actually mean.

Like there’s a script for grief and that’s line one, and once it’s delivered, that’s it. Curtain closed.

And I wonder...

Do other people hate it too?

Because it feels so empty.

Like it’s more about them saying something to feel less awkward than it is about you and what you're going through.

They say it, and then they vanish.

They don’t call. They don’t check in.

They don’t sit with you in the hard parts.

It’s like their job is done now that they’ve acknowledged it once.

And what about the ones who don’t say anything at all?

The people you haven’t seen in a long time, the ones who’ve heard what happened.

They see you. Smile politely. Pretend they don’t know.

They talk about the weather, work, their pets, everything except the giant hole in the room that used to be your person.

No “how are you holding up?”

No “I heard, and I’ve been thinking about you.”

Just silence.

Like your grief is something too inconvenient to mention.

And then there’s the question that really cuts:

“Well... were you two close?”

As if that’s supposed to measure the weight of your pain.

As if not being “close” would somehow make the loss easier to swallow.

But grief doesn’t care about labels or proximity.

It doesn’t care if you hadn’t spoken in months, or if things ended badly.

If someone meant something to you, if they shaped you, scarred you, held a place in your story, their loss will hurt.

And you are allowed to feel it.

Even if someone else doesn’t understand why.

It just...

It feels like people say what they think they should say, instead of what they really feel.

Like they’re more concerned with checking the grief etiquette box than showing up and staying there.

And then, when they're over it, you’re supposed to be over it, too.

But grief doesn't work like that.

It doesn’t end after the first round of texts or once the funeral is over.

It doesn’t shrink down just because they’re done hearing about it.

So yeah, I hate it.

I hate the polite phrases, the disappearing acts, the shallow empathy, the silence.

But I want to know...

Do you hate it too?

Do you hate the way people tiptoe around your pain?

The way they think acknowledging it once is enough?

The way they think distance or time should dilute your grief?

Because if you do

If you’ve felt unseen, unheard, or dismissed in your mourning

You’re not alone.

You there. Yeah, you, floating somewhere between hope and heaviness. Maybe in your bed, or the bathtub. Maybe mid-breakdown with eyeliner running like war paint or maybe sipping tea pretending today didn’t almost swallow you whole.

I see you. I feel you. This one’s for us.

I call myself an optimistic nihilist like it’s a soft rebellion. A tender riot. A wink at the abyss. I know there’s no grand meaning out there, no cosmic judge waiting to score me on how gracefully I suffered. There’s just space. Time. Dust. The sound of my own heartbeat as I try to stitch purpose into a world that doesn’t hand any out.

And you know what? I love that.

I thrive in that.

I take that emptiness and I fill it with kisses and chaos and color and kindness. I fuck up. I start over. I say “this hurts” out loud. I say “I love you” even louder. I write like it’ll save someone, and sometimes, it fucking does.

I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I’m probably more like a haunted goblet of glittery mead—sweet but intense, strange but warm, and not to be chugged without a little warning. I am soft, yes—but not fragile. I am stitched together with overthinking and ocean tides, I say “sorry” too much and still bite when I need to. I care deeply and chaotically. I cry watching sunsets and I will rip apart anyone who hurts someone I love.

I choose to love people like art exhibits—gently, curiously, reverently. And when I love, I love. There is no halfway in me. There never was.

But don’t mistake that for naivety. I know people leave. I know grief like the back of my hand. I know what it’s like to hold someone’s ghost in my lungs and still try to sing. I’ve slept beside absences. I’ve buried versions of myself so many times I should’ve earned a shovel by now. And still…

I rise.

Not because I think the universe will reward me.

But because I want to see what happens next.

Because nothing matters, so I get to decide what does.

And I decide that you matter.

Your softness. Your mess. Your contradictions.

I don’t care if your coping mechanisms are strange, if you cry in parking lots, or if healing looks like a goddamn hurricane. If you’re still here, still trying, still breathing with intent—that’s enough. That’s more than enough.

So here’s your little ritual for the days when the void is louder than your joy:

— Light a candle for no reason.

— Write down three things you did today instead of everything you didn’t.

— Put your hand on your chest and whisper, “This heartbeat means I still get to try.”

— Say “I matter” even if it feels like a lie.

And if no one’s said it to you lately, let me scream it softly into your bones:

You are not behind.

You are not too much.

You are not broken.

You are becoming.

Say it back:

I am a constellation of chaos and calm.

I am not small just because I hurt.

I exist without needing to earn it.

The universe might not give a fuck—but I do.

And I will always make that louder than the silence.

So dance barefoot on your kitchen floor.

Text someone first even if it scares you.

Eat the food. Wear the thing. Feel the feeling.

Cry, scream, laugh, heal, spiral, mend—do it all, baby. Do it unapologetically.

If we’re all just atoms bumping around in a cosmic accident, then I want my atoms to leave glitter trails and bite marks and love notes behind. I want my pain to make someone else feel less alone. I want my softness to be louder than the entropy.

So from one stardust soul to another:

Make art. Make mess. Make meaning.

And never forget—

even if the world ends tomorrow,

you were here.

You mattered.

You burned.

With ink in my veins and fire in my lungs,

—Dew

P.S. You’re not lost. You’re just on your way.