My Acoustic Diaries: Autumn Letting Go

There’s a trail near home that I’ve walked more times than I can count. It twists with the river, lined with trees that seem older than memory. Their roots claw at the dirt, their branches stretch across the sky like they’re reaching for something they’ll never quite touch.

I always end up there when the seasons start to shift. Something about that change outside stirs the same change inside me. I’ll leave the headphones at home, because silence and sound of nature feel louder than any playlist. The ground is damp, my boots crunch over scattered branches, and the air has that bite to it that only autumn carries. Sharp enough to sting, soft enough to remind you you’re still alive.

I remember one afternoon, sitting at the river’s edge. The water was steady, dark, relentless. I was deep in thought, wrestling with regrets I couldn’t shake—nights I shouldn’t have lived through, choices that wrecked more than they built. Then I noticed a perfect red-and-orange maple leaf loosen its grip, drift down, and land on the water.

It floated for a moment before the current pulled it under. Ripples spread outward, circles widening until they reached the shore where I sat. That image burned into me: how even the smallest letting go makes waves. How every action we take, every thing we release—or refuse to release—creates ripples that touch more than just ourselves.

The trees teach it every year. They don’t cling to what’s dying. They don’t beg summer to stay. They shed what they can’t carry, stripping down to nothing while trusting that spring will come again. They bare themselves to the cold, because that’s the only way something new can ever grow.

I wish I could say I’ve always been that brave. But for most of my life, I’ve clung to the very things that were killing me. Addiction had me in its teeth by fourteen. By the time most kids were figuring out who they wanted to be, I was figuring out how to score, how to numb, how to outrun the chaos inside me. The habits I picked up weren’t just self-destruction—they were anchors. And I carried them through youth jail, through broken relationships, through nights where I swore I wouldn’t wake up and sometimes didn’t care if I did.

Autumn makes me face that. It strips me bare in the same way it does the trees. When I see those leaves fall, I can’t help but think about the things I’ve held onto too long. People who hurt me. Regrets I play on repeat like a bad song. The weight of mistakes that can’t be undone. I’ve kept them clutched in my hands because letting go felt too much like losing. But really, the longer you hold on, the heavier it all gets.

The river rushing by sounds like everything I’ve been gripping too tightly. Old grudges, self-hatred, that gnawing hunger for escape. The river doesn’t stop—it doesn’t care what I throw into it. It carries everything forward. That’s how I want to be. Not frozen in the past. Not rotting on the branch. Moving, flowing, letting go.

Even my music changes with the season. Fall pulls me toward slower songs, heavier chords, stripped-down arrangements. There’s more silence between the notes, space for the weight of the lyrics to land. My guitar feels different in my hands when the nights turn cold—like it’s speaking a language only autumn understands. In those moments, the songs that come out of me aren’t polished. They’re raw, aching, meant to bleed.

But here’s the thing: autumn isn’t just endings. It’s a preparation. The trees don’t die when they lose their leaves—they make space for the new. The ground gets covered in what was, so one day, something else can grow. That’s what I have to remind myself when it feels like I’m only losing. Letting go isn’t weakness. It’s survival. And maybe it’s even the beginning of something stronger.

Every leaf that falls is a sermon, every ripple a reminder. The pain we carry has its season, but it doesn’t deserve to last forever. And maybe the hardest part of healing is trusting that emptiness—those bare branches, that silence—isn’t the end. It’s just the pause before spring.

So I’ll ask you the same question I’ve been asking myself out there by the river:

What are you holding onto that this season is asking you to release?

                                                                                  ......... With Love, Walters Fall