Moving On and Starting Over

I walked out of my apartment at 9 AM on Saturday to a freshly-scrubbed world.. At first I attributed the crispness of the air to the heavy rainfall the night before, and then it dawned on me. Fall is coming.

Since I was little, fall has symbolized more of a new year than January 1^st ever did. In January you open a new calendar, stay up really late and watch fireworks. But fall brought new classes, seeing everyone after the summer, and growing up in Tucson, relief from the insufferable heat. Once I got to college fall still meant new classes and reunions with friends, but it also came to mean pumpkin flavored everything, SPICED. CARAMEL. CIDER., and building my “light layers” wardrobe. As the years rolled by, it also came to mean one other thing. One short little word that stresses me out unlike any other. Moving. All in keeping with new starts and new years, how appropriate is it that I’m still keeping that tradition alive?

My life is in boxes. Overwhelmingly so.

And as stressed as that makes me, that early morning stroll in the crisp fall air I experienced something I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing for quite some time. Peace. That hope of a fresh start, of freeing myself from the past, has been a perspective I’ve been lacking for quite some time. As my herbal tea cautioned me this morning, "Those who live in the past limit their future."

So I’ve promised myself that I’m going to make the most of this new opportunity. I'm starting over. And that's a wonderful thing.