Today is the first day of fall, my favorite time of year. It's a cooler, darker time filled with shadows and nostalgia. There's something about the warmth of the sun blending with the cool breeze that makes me feel reflective and renewed at the same time.
Most people look at the fall season as an ending, mourning the loss of summer, but for me it's the beginning of a new year. It's a mystery why my body and soul doesn't conform to the calendar year ritual of celebrating the new year on January 1st, but they don't. I'm sure there's probably a pagan ritual surrounding whichever solstice this is but I don't really follow paganism either. Luckily I don't really needed the pomp and circumstance of a formal ritual because for me the changing of this season brings a time of reflection. I gather together my past decisions and really try to analyze what they brought into my life. Some choices will be from only a few months past, others may make an appearance from years gone by. Also included are ideas I'm toying with, decisions I haven't committed to yet. It's one of the few times in my life when I let myself off the hook and really just examine my life without being too critical. I'm probably as honest with myself as I'm ever going to be during this time. I almost feel like a child again, sitting in my favorite tree, watching the world below. From this perspective it's easy to recognize my accomplishments or where my plan derailed because I can see where every path originated and where it leads. It's like having my finger on the re-wind button. I can go back and forth, back and forth, reviewing each little detail until I discover the exact moment each decision was made correctly or what caused the failure. If I'm lucky, I can even see where I'd headed and make adjustments before it's too late. It's like opening up the big book of life and getting to peek at the answers.
As much as I enjoy this time of year, it's also a very emotional time for me. I literally could cry at a good AT&T commercial. It feels like a year's worth of sucking it up to deal with life's day-to-day crap has built up and it starts toppling over. As harsh as that sounds, it actually feels like a cleansing rain is washing all the residue off my soul and leaving me with a fresh start.
This is the of time of year when I recognize that those goals I made earlier in the year are still here, even though they got pushed aside because of all the little fires I had to put out. But they haven't gone anywhere and instead of looking at them as just another thing I didn't accomplish, I realize there's still time. It's not too late. The fall season to me is like a mini-midlife crisis, where I can reevaluate and regroup because there's still time to get where I want to go. And like the Great and Powerful Oz, I almost always realize that the very thing I'm seeking has been right there in front of me all along. And I just now realized it's also the time I make my biggest life-changing decisions. I bought my home in the Fall and I decided to begin the adoption process during the fall, although I didn't go public with it until early Spring. I made the mental jump to quitting my job during the Fall to begin the risky life of a writer.
For some reason, the turning of leaves represent a time of change for me and it's when I stop weighing an idea and just decide to do it or to move on. Hummmm, I wonder what big decisions are in store for me this year?
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