My stomach is nervous and my brain is jumpy as I walk out into the cool dark morning. The air is slightly misty.  The sun is absent.  The new shirt I wear is crisp with creases much like the leaves on the trees. My new cords feel comfortable right now but will feel heavy and warm by mid-afternoon.

My insides tighten. The first day of something new.

I put one foot in front of the other and make it to the end of the driveway where a gold behemoth of red flashing lights and growling engine awaits. I climb into its belly and succumb to my school-year destiny.

An Adult Fall

Every year as the air crisps and the calendar dips toward Labor Day I get a transitional feeling in my soul. Like I am about to embark on something meaningful yet effortful. Suddenly, Don Henley’s Boys of Summer is ubiquitous, serving as a haunting escort between the easy breezes of summer and the bracing winds of change. Fall is an industrious season. Time to put your head down and get busy. Learn. Work. Grow. Change. Resistance drags its flip-flopped feet while curiosity pulls me toward new warm experiences. Learning is enchanting but change is scary.

This year is no different.  My children are the ones waiting in the cool darkness for the school bus monster but I am also waiting for my school year destiny.  While they are away for 7 short hours I will be doing my home work.  I will write, organize and teach myself how to be a single, money earning, self-sufficient woman.

I will learn lessons not taught in school. How to work independently. How to handle set backs.  How to pursue a passion.  How to be your own boss. How to give up and then start again.  How to lose old classmates and embrace new ones. How to manage time. How to juggle loved ones, career pursuits and personal renewal.

Since last fall my marriage has ended, I stopped taking guitar lessons and my Tuesday night writing group has disbanded.  So, the curriculum is different and my classmates are unfamiliar. It’s as if I have started at a new school and my best friends have moved away. No one to save me a seat at lunch. I’ll have to be OK with sitting alone or  next to different peers with bright eyes and gentle smiles. Either way, here I go.

Failing and Passing

Change is a great teacher. Last year I chose to move out of the solid stable life I had known for 18 years.  As I chose change I both failed and passed in many ways. I feel like I failed my kids and I failed my ex-husband.  I didn’t stick with the original syllabus. Failure is also a great teacher. In veering from and messing up the original course-work, I learned so much about myself.  I learned what gives me energy (and what kills me), what gives me purpose, and how to be the best me. I chose to educate myself in subjects beyond home, kids and marriage. Home and Kids are still mandatory prerequisites for the rest of my life but now self-care and passionate pursuits also vie for spots on my course schedule. I feel like I am getting a healthy well-rounded education yet  I have to find a way to work independently.

Post-Divorce Graduate Work

I have to find a way for myself.  I will not have children to raise and child support forever.  How am I going to support myself when the kids are gone?  When their school years are over and I have earned my undergraduate degree in parenting, then what?  I will be thrust out into the world as a graduate. No herd to follow. No parental-like financial backing. Self-taught, home schooled and uneasy with my credentials, I’ll be wide-eyed and wondering about the best way to use my time.  I better have a plan.  I better be ready.

Please Show Your Work

My current plan is to get on the bus every day. Manage my household but use the time when the kids are with their father or at school to write/take classes/gain experience. All with the intention of obtaining an income and creating self-sufficiency.

I plan to sit at my desk at regular scheduled times and work. Pencils sharpened, thinking cap on. Writing for reals. I’ll create deadlines and stick to them.

I will take a class in Family Mediation and see if mediation is a viable career choice.

I have many old friends just waiting to teach me something and I am extremely open to meeting new people. Instead of seeking out friends, I intend to do what I love and bump into them as I go.  I’ll welcome new people at the lunch table but also know I am fine sitting by myself  — something I’ve learned as an adult.

Since I have weathered so many changes over the last year, I am not as ambivalent about the ones to come this fall.  Curiosity is winning over resistance. I now see change as a teacher and as an adult what you learn is often immediately applicable.  All I have to do is take those steps down the driveway and succumb to my school-year destiny.

How does fall make you feel? Do you feel a desire to dig in to something worthwhile? What could you pursue this autumn?

Related articles