For French readers, the original version of this article is available here: Fragments du mois d’Octobre.

October is the month of my birth. It’s a time when I leave one age behind for another, when I tend to believe in renewal, in beginnings, and sometimes in resignation. This year, I like to think it was different. That I asked myself questions, simply. That I dared to sing when love was all that was left to say. That I let myself be guided by instincts born from fleeting moments. The thoughts of October are vulnerable and intimate. If I had to keep only one, it would be this: “Happy birthday to you, who never stopped fighting to become yourself.”

The fragments

1 Beginnings give us the courage to set new goals, goals give us purpose, and purpose gives light to our vision. Each beginning is a chance to rise again, to start over, to build step by step a life worth living.

2 Things happen when they can. We often think they come by surprise, but they usually grow out of what we’ve prepared, repaired, or left unfinished out of what we dared to dream and then forgot. Nothing ever truly happens by chance : things arrive when time, heart, and life finally open the door for them.

3 Sometimes we insist, we resist what the heart tells us to stop. The signs are there, the signals too, but some hidden force keeps us from understanding them. So we move forward, head down, for better or for worse. And often, it’s the worst that awaits us to teach, to correct, to shake us, or simply to let us taste the bittersweet wine of stubbornness.

4 Who can predict the moment when death appears and turns life into mourning? Who can swear not to fear it, or live as if it didn’t exist ? Only children can until they, too, discover what life hides behind its brightness.

5 Life is made of choices, and choosing to truly live it remains the greatest one of all.

6 We never really know people. We know them enough to love them, enough to suffer for them, but never enough to foresee the face they’ll wear tomorrow.

7 The more I grow, the more I learn to know myself, to accept my slowness, and to make it a strength. I like knowing that I can blossom in what the world mistakes for laziness or lack of ambition. I take my time by nature, and this time far from slowing me down turns what seems like failure into a quiet act of contemplation.

8 There was a time when I repeated without thinking, “Be the change you want to see in others.” Today, I see how true it is, how hard it is, how much strength, desire, and responsibility it demands. To grow again and again that’s the real struggle.

9 Everything is grace when you realize it could have been much worse. Everything is grace when the heart, freed from resentment, rediscovers the simple taste of happiness.

10 Recognizing the wrongs of the past helps forgive the delays of the present. It repairs remorse, restores strength, and teaches us not to twist the past but to accept the present. That’s how we heal simply.

11 It’s a joy to learn, to open up to the world, and to gather everything life has to offer through experience whether alone or with others. Solitude is precious when it isn’t endured, and companionship, as rich as it is, means little if we can’t step away from it without suffering.

12 We spend childhood wanting to please, filling boxes and expectations, leaving ourselves behind so that the family won’t leave us. Then comes adolescence, when we lose ourselves again trying to resemble others, hoping people will gather around us too. And when the age of reason finally arrives, finding oneself becomes the only quest that truly matters.

13 Do each day what you can, even if it’s not always what you want. It isn’t perfection that matters, but consistency. As long as you move forward with integrity, you’re already doing the essential.

14 We are all born equal or almost with different stories and backgrounds. What truly sets us apart are our thoughts. They become ideas, compasses that transform us and show the way. We are rich with what we think, for thought always draws the first path toward what we will become.

15 I like to believe that God watches over us, that He heals the wounds others dig, that He restores strength when life wears us out. I love drawing from that boundless love, that inexhaustible source where the heart can finally rest.

16 Love begins as friendship without clarity. Everything is lived in excess, everything felt in exaggeration, until truth imposes itself. Few find the strength to go on exposed, fragile, faced with their flaws and shadows.

17 We learn as much as we unlearn. We learn the good as well as the bad, and it’s an illusion to think we always grow. Sometimes we fall back, we stumble, we regret not having stopped ourselves. But that awareness of our flaws and our returns to the past makes us a little wiser and keeps us from hurting ourselves further.

18 Life is made of celebrations and defeats. We must choose the former and accept the latter. Sometimes defeat comes first and quietly prepares triumph. Love is the finest proof of this: we stop fighting, and that’s when happiness begins.

19 The heart has its reasons that reason senses, fears, yet cannot master. It sees the danger coming, foresees the hurt, and still remains silent before this heart that refuses the end even on the edge of disaster.

20 There are days when we open up to be freed from our pains and doubts. Days of sharing to find peace again, days when we seek to drive away the darkness by imploring the heavens.

21 When all we have is love, we still possess the essentials : the strength to believe, the patience to wait, and the breath to begin again.

22 Some days carry more lessons than others we only realize it once they’re gone.

23 Life is an adventure that deals out as much wrong as love, as many trials as strengths, as many reasons to believe as to doubt. It gives us a thousand reasons to fight and just as many to lay down our arms when no one notices our tears.

24 Happy birthday to you the one you’re still becoming, the one who fought without applause, without witness, to finally exist in her own name.

25 Communication is the key to so many misunderstandings. To speak, to listen, to rephrase that’s often all it takes to understand each other a little better, and to love each other a little more.

26 Life is so beautiful, so fascinating. Lucky is the one who takes it as it is, and turns it into a story worth living even when things don’t go as planned.

27 Life is a story of choices, of beginnings, of losses and renewals. It’s written in advance, because we all know it will end. For those whose lives have been nothing but pain, death becomes triumph a deliverance after the fight. But for those who still hope to perfect their passage, to taste happiness once more, death keeps the bitter flavor of defeat.

28 “So it goes,” they say. And life always goes somewhere. The time of life is ours the time when we feel strong and fragile at once, alive and mortal without truly being moved by it. So many reasons to fight, to rise, to step out of line, to prove our courage or, if nothing else, to simply wish for it.

29 We all come from a family, an inheritance, a memory, a burden. We carry within us these invisible, unbreakable bonds that shape our steps, our strengths, and our lacks. We come from a past we must either repair or give thanks to.

30 Life is a whirlwind of feelings we lose ourselves at times, but somehow always find our way back.

31 Luck isn’t only about having it’s about seeing, being, and becoming. That’s where true wealth lies : in the awareness of what we live, and in the quiet desire to keep growing.

Conclusion

October ends like a notebook closing on its confessions. In it, I’ve found again the thread of my slowness, the taste of learning differently, the faith that comforts, and the reason that questions. I’ve seen life in all its complexity tender and rough, generous and demanding. I’ve understood that becoming oneself takes time, patience, and sometimes silence. That peace is not a state but a journey. And that despite the falls, the doubts, and the losses, there always remains a little love, a little faith, a little light to keep growing. I wrote it down in my notebook.

And if your heart feels like it, continue reading through the other fragments of this year, September, August, July to follow the rhythm of the seasons in the journey of one same soul.

Written by Aliane UMUTONIWASE