The beginning of September indicates summer’s end, a termination date set since you moved back and started school.
The beginning of September starts the countdown of summer’s end, a termination date set since you moved back to your university town and started school. Maybe you didn’t move at all. It doesn’t really matter, you feel doomed either way. You try to enjoy the end of it. You go to local coffee shops and sit on your patio, trying to soak in the last moments. The sun and the breeze and the sunscreen on your thigh, but it doesn’t feel right. You remember when the temperature started with a ‘2’ back in May and how giddy you felt with so much summer left to experience. So much yet to be done. So many short skirts to be worn and books to be read on hammocks and sweat to be poured on the pavement. Everything was possible. But now, it feels like a star-crossed love crawling towards its inevitable break. You keep holding your breath. Please end. But you don’t want it to end just yet.
September can feel overwhelming for so many people, especially students. Countless new changes and schedules to adapt to. I spent my whole summer dreaming what my second year could be, and scheming all the ways I was going to improve my life. Yoga class! New clubs! That new pomodoro method! But the messy reality of a new school year crashed all my plans of control to the floor. It plummeted like the leaves. You can never anticipate the unexpected – and I never anticipated being so lost in the transition of seasons — and life.
Then, the heavy rain falls and the temperature plummets and the heat you desperately cling to is all washed into the autumn soil. In a snap of a finger. Gone like a candle in the wind. Nature has done the deed for you. You finally let out that breath. It’s finally over. You mourn the loss of summer and all that wide-eyed joy. But, you’re glad that it’s over and that its heaviness has been lifted off your chest. A new beginning. A divorce of the seasons that drove one completely out. A gruesome separation with so many burned memories and possibilities, yet, a sort of grace is maintained. A bloody, yet forgiving, compassionate grace. It’s autumn and things will be okay — in a very different way.
The cool crisp air sweeps in and cleans you of your grogginess. You start taking the sweaters out and watch Starbucks stock up with their fall drinks. Apple macchiatos and pumpkin cream and all the spices that have been assigned to the chilly season. It’s autumn and it’s a new school year and you can make all your new year’s resolutions. It’s autumn and you can soak in the delight of reinvention, the curiosity of what is to come, and still stutter with a fear of shorter cold days. It’s a divorce of the seasons and you are it’s child. A terrifying, new beginning.
And maybe this autumn, you can let yourself be unsure. Be unsure of where you came from and where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. Have you noticed the choreographed dance the leaves execute as they twirl to the ground? Watch the shape of the ‘V’ that the geese make as they fly off to a warmer future. How do you fly with your flock? Take that pilates class at the Pulse and wrap yourself tighter in your cardigan. Look at your lover with a sweet disposition and pull an all-nighter at Mills. It’s autumn and you can do whatever you want as the world spirals into a whirlwind of burgundy and spice and coolness with All Too Well (10 Minute Version) playing in the background.
I’ve learned the beauty of cocooning in the unknown, and letting go of control. I can treat each second as if it were totally brand new, and see where life could take me. That period between who you used to be and the person you’re becoming – that transitional stage – doesn’t have to be a delayed version of existing. I’ve made it into its own ceremony and embraced the unknown that transitions brings.