My Fall Blahs

I seem to have official embarked on my annual fall funk. Seriously. It seems to be a recurring fall thing. And I think I'm starting to understand why. Fall used to be my favorite time of year. Besides the fact that I get extremely excited about the first real cold front with its chilly breezes blowing through my open windows, fall has always marked new beginnings for me--far more than spring, which I suppose is the official season of new beginnings.

As a child, I got very excited each year for the start of school. New teachers, new classmates, new challenges, new SCHOOL SUPPLIES. I loved it all. Then, as a young adult, fall marked bigger beginnings. Going off to New Orleans for college, returning to Tulane and my first apartment sophomore year, leaving for a year in Germany, returning for my senior year at Tulane and a great job as an RA, and then heading back to Germany for my Fulbright year. All that cool stuff happened in the fall. Then I moved to Austin for graduate school, started my first teaching job, and later started my career in publishing. . . all in the fall. I spent the fall of 1995 preparing for my wedding and the fall of 1999 eagerly awaiting Zoe's birth. In the fall of 2000, I discovered I was pregnant with Mia. In the fall of 2001, we sold our first house and moved into our second house.

So, yeah, fall has always been about new beginnings, making changes, moving forward, making things better. It was about taking risks and knowing adventure was ahead. It was about the sense of connection that comes from meeting new people and building new relationships.

But now? At this point in my life fall means getting the kids into a school routine, shuffling schedules to make everything fit together smoothly, selling crap to raise money for the school, and fretting over the looming family obligations of Thanksgiving and Christmas, which require careful negotiations with warring parties and usually involve one, if not several, major emotional meltdowns on my part. To describe it all with one word: Blargh (thanks to the eloquent Allison Dancy for providing the perfect word).

I'm happy with my life, don't get me wrong, but I want the OLD fall back. I really, really miss that sense of wonder about what lies ahead, that excitement about what's to come. But how do I get that back? I don't think it's as simple as signing up for tap dancing lessons or a creative writing class (good lord, can you imagine?). But I don't know what the answer is.