Back-to-school time always felt like the real "new year" for me. I started planning my triumphant return to school weeks out from school orientation night. I agonized about the right outfit to wear on the first day. I plotted about how I was going to be "different" than I was the last school year, just a mere few months prior. I truly believed in the metamorphosis power of back-to-school. It's funny how I never really changed in the ways I secretly imagined, however. I never became the most popular kid in school. I never got to tour with New Kids on the Block and be Joey McIntyre's girlfriend. (I never said my secret imaginings were remotely realistic.) But other good things happened - things that I couldn't have foreseen, and that I wouldn't have changed in retrospect.
Now I'm a grown woman, and I realize that it's not that easy to reinvent myself in the span of 2-3 months. Even though there are things that I sorely wish I could change, I now know that radical metamorphosis requires time, resources, determination, and motivation. Truth be told, I'm severely lacking in all those departments. I think that's okay. It's fine to be who I am, right here and right now.
I'm not going back to any school this year, but September still marks the beginning of my busy season. There are holidays to plan for, plus Cafe Davis - our 12-day crazy pants dinner party. There's college football season, and harvest festivals and pumpkin patches. Enjoying each one of those things is going to change me. I'll spark new friendships and deepen existing ones. I'll create lasting memories. I'll do good things for other people, and gratefully accept kindnesses directed toward me. I'll have struggles, and I'll appreciate those who pause to help me. I'll see dreams ignite, and others fade away.
I certainly won't be the same person this time next year that I am today. No one ever is. Change tends to be quotidian; it manifests in the day-to-day. It comes gradually, not radically. If we keep trying to put our best foot forward, however, hopefully the changes that come will be more good than bad. It's taken me a long time to realize this good lesson: Be at ease with who you are because you'll never be the same.
Now I'm a grown woman, and I realize that it's not that easy to reinvent myself in the span of 2-3 months. Even though there are things that I sorely wish I could change, I now know that radical metamorphosis requires time, resources, determination, and motivation. Truth be told, I'm severely lacking in all those departments. I think that's okay. It's fine to be who I am, right here and right now.
I'm not going back to any school this year, but September still marks the beginning of my busy season. There are holidays to plan for, plus Cafe Davis - our 12-day crazy pants dinner party. There's college football season, and harvest festivals and pumpkin patches. Enjoying each one of those things is going to change me. I'll spark new friendships and deepen existing ones. I'll create lasting memories. I'll do good things for other people, and gratefully accept kindnesses directed toward me. I'll have struggles, and I'll appreciate those who pause to help me. I'll see dreams ignite, and others fade away.
I certainly won't be the same person this time next year that I am today. No one ever is. Change tends to be quotidian; it manifests in the day-to-day. It comes gradually, not radically. If we keep trying to put our best foot forward, however, hopefully the changes that come will be more good than bad. It's taken me a long time to realize this good lesson: Be at ease with who you are because you'll never be the same.
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