There are few things I miss more than that excited, anxious, what-am-I-going-to-wear feeling the night before the first day of school. Two summers have now come and gone since I graduated from college, and with them, my obsession with the intoxicating, inky smell of new textbooks has waned. My annual dismay that the weather in early September was never as cool as my new sweater demanded has diminished. And the feeling that this was the year I would finally bring back the skirt over pants look, has thankfully subsided.
The more I thought about it, the sadder I got. But then the more I really thought about it, it dawned on me: why can't I treat tomorrow like the first day of school? Not in a pathetic, Peter Pan, never let it go kind of way, but in the sense that the change of seasons demands a change in attitude and there's no reason to fight what our environment thrusts upon us. After all, the fall requires a new wardrobe, new kinds of food, new amounts of coffee, new ways of coping with your seasonal affective disorder. So why not a whole new mindset too?
And, in fact, as much as I loved those first autumnal breezes, there was always the inevitable sadness that came along with the realization that the back to school jitters would pass, lazy summer days were over, you were just writing papers and studying for tests again and not much had really, truly changed.
So, while joining the real world and working a full-time job has been a major blow for someone with a former case of back to school mania, it's also let the nostalgic twinge of summer passing become refreshingly meaningless. I'm not leaving somewhere or something, so there's no room for the often misguided notion that a change in scenery means a change in lifestyle, or relationships, or happiness.
In a post-school world, it's all about creating your own annual cycles. The year isn't separated into the convenient divisions of school and no-school anymore. Any time of year can become the perfect time for a fresh start. And if that time just happens to coincide with the first day below 80 degrees in months, so be it. Because fall has always really been more my kind of season anyway. A world without hats, scarves, and coats just isn't a world I want to be part of.
The more I thought about it, the sadder I got. But then the more I really thought about it, it dawned on me: why can't I treat tomorrow like the first day of school? Not in a pathetic, Peter Pan, never let it go kind of way, but in the sense that the change of seasons demands a change in attitude and there's no reason to fight what our environment thrusts upon us. After all, the fall requires a new wardrobe, new kinds of food, new amounts of coffee, new ways of coping with your seasonal affective disorder. So why not a whole new mindset too?
And, in fact, as much as I loved those first autumnal breezes, there was always the inevitable sadness that came along with the realization that the back to school jitters would pass, lazy summer days were over, you were just writing papers and studying for tests again and not much had really, truly changed.
So, while joining the real world and working a full-time job has been a major blow for someone with a former case of back to school mania, it's also let the nostalgic twinge of summer passing become refreshingly meaningless. I'm not leaving somewhere or something, so there's no room for the often misguided notion that a change in scenery means a change in lifestyle, or relationships, or happiness.
In a post-school world, it's all about creating your own annual cycles. The year isn't separated into the convenient divisions of school and no-school anymore. Any time of year can become the perfect time for a fresh start. And if that time just happens to coincide with the first day below 80 degrees in months, so be it. Because fall has always really been more my kind of season anyway. A world without hats, scarves, and coats just isn't a world I want to be part of.
No comments:
Post a Comment