Growing up includes losing things: a house, a friend, a version of your family. You can grieve and grow at once.

Getting older is not only addition. Rooms get packed up, people drift, and the family you drew in second grade is not the one you live in now. Those losses are real, and naming them does not make you ungrateful. Sadness and growth are not competing for one seat.

If something is gone this year, give it a few honest minutes instead of pushing it down, and tell one person what you miss. Then go to practice, or work, and let both things be true at once.