September, A Time for Transition
Last night, as I prepared my The ONE, The EVERYTHING Notebook for September, I realized that September is a month of transition.
The days are growing obviously shorter and will until December 21.
The heat is subsiding for most of us and soon evening temperatures will require at least a light jacket or sweater.
The leaves will change from the various greens they have displayed since the spring months to vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows as nature transitions from summer through fall and into winter before they stand totally bare.
Transition invades our lives as well. We go through many different periods in our lives of changing from one condition to another or one state of living to another.
-R. Kojetin
Educational Transitions
Students, in going back to school, transition from one grade to the next or even to a different building.
Households transition from a laid-back, summer atmosphere to a more focused system. Alarms wake students so they can get to school on time. They move through their day, at least in the high school atmosphere, to a system of bells and return home in the evening to address homework (or at least parents and teachers hope).
Transition comes when we graduate from high school or college.
New college freshmen transition to living life without parental guidance, while those same parents pray that they have raised their children with strong values and instilled inner motivation. These freshmen must learn to live with new people, maybe even friends, and now rely on themselves to get to class, get the homework done, and schedule their lives.
Life Transitions
It comes when we get married, divorced, or lose a spouse to death. It comes when we become parents or even grandparents. It comes when we move from one home to another or one city, or state to another. It comes when we leave one job and begin a new one. And it comes when we retire from work entirely – if that ever happens for some of us.
The Bookends of Summer
This weekend is Labor Day Weekend. When I was teaching, I called it one of the two bookend weekends of summer. Memorial Day Weekend began the summer as most public pools opened, school had come to a close for the year, and when I was a kid, the park district programs began. Labor Day Weekend closed the summer season with a big music and food festival.
My Personal Transitions
I too am working through some of life’s transitions: learning to come to terms with losing my husband to COVID; learning to live without the responsibilities of being a caregiver; learning to live as a single, senior woman; learning to adopt a healthier lifestyle; and re-discovering where my passions lie and what meaning I want to squeeze out of life.
It’s a lot to ask of myself all at once. And yes, I know that there will be days when the Grief Monster will peek around the corner to see if I am distracted or the spirit of overwhelm will laugh at what I am trying to accomplish. But, I am learning to persevere.
I read someone’s post on Facebook this morning that I want to share with you. (I researched to find the author of this text, but Google said it found nothing with the first line.)
if someone laid a pile of one hundred bricks
on the ground in front of you
and asked you to lift them all at once
in order to move the pile to a new place
you would laugh in their face
***
if someone asked you to lift
one brick at a time, one hundred times
in order to move the pile to a new place
you could easily do this
***
so why would you place a pile of everything
you want to change about your life
on the ground in front of you
and try to lift it all at once
***
change comes one brick at a time
What about you?
How are you coping with the changes that life brings? Please take a moment to share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.
Until next time . . .
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One Comment
Pam Brasher
I read on Facebook yesterday about a person who was trapped under a roll of hay. They tried to move the roll and couldn’t. The person tried to tell them to just cut the strings. Fortunately, he was rescued but it was touch and go. The roll of hay was too much as a bundle. When the strings are cut it becomes a manageable pile of pieces of hay. Same premise different story. You don’t have to do it all at once.