Anxiety and Grief About the Future

What Nectarines (and my Anxiety) are Teaching Me About Being Delulu.

Lately, I’ve been catching myself grieving the end of summer. Not over the dwindling daylight hours or the slow creep of cooler mornings. No, my sorrow has been squarely aimed at… nectarines.

Yes, nectarines. That, and their equally enchanting cousins: cherries.

a crate of freshly picked nectarines

Every time I bite into that juicy, sun-soaked flesh of a stone fruit I feel a pang of dread. My mind immediately fast-forwards to January, imagining myself pacing the aisles of the grocery store with a basic of apples, longing for fruit that won’t arrive for months. The anxiety and grief are so palpable I almost need a black veil and a procession.

But let’s be honest: this is me being delulu (as my kid would say).

Because really there is no January yet. The “future without nectarines” I keep mourning doesn’t exist. The “future” is nothing more than a mental collage stitched together from the scraps of my past winters. In other words, I am suffering not from real life but rather, my memories and imagination. I’m grieving a phantom reality. One that isn’t here, isn’t now, and maybe never will be.

The yogis and mystics have been telling us this forever: the past no longer exists, the future hasn’t arrived, and all we truly have is this moment. Yet my mind insists on spinning fruit-related fiction piece about a winter of despair. When in truth, all I have right now is a perfectly ripe nectarine dripping down my wrist as I type this.

And isn’t that the invitation?

To stop resisting the seasons of life, stop mourning what hasn’t even left, and instead sink deeply into the gifts right here: the last of the stone fruit, the golden sunsets, the way summer seems to cling just a little longer than I expect.

When I remember this, nectarines stop being the symbol of some imagined loss. They become exactly what they are—sweet, fleeting reminders that life is always offering us something to savor. And that presence, is the real abundance.

So here’s my invitation to you, to reflect and journal on the ways that you too, are being delulu:

What “future grief” are you carrying right now that doesn’t actually exist yet? How might it feel to set it down and return to the sweetness of what’s here in this exact moment?