The Autumn Blues

  • By Trish Berg
  • August 17, 2011
  • 297
                        
Struggling with loads of laundry, clutter in the kitchen and chaos in your life? Stress can easily steal our joy. Trish Berg reminds us to simplify the small stuff and find Joy in the Journey. I am not sure why back to school time brings back that knot-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling. I have been through oodles of back to school seasons, seventeen of my own, and eleven of my children’s. Each one bringing its own panic attack of excitement mixed with complete and utter fear of what lies ahead. The earliest I remember was Kindergarten, though my memory is somewhat fuzzy on that one. I do remember wearing a white sweater with red checks on it each and every day, no matter what else I was wearing. It coordinated with nothing, and yet I wore it with everything. I think, looking back, it was because it felt safe. It drove my mom crazy when she dressed me in those cute matching outfits and then I tossed on my red and white sweater. It was my bullet –proof safety vest, and it helped, I guess. In junior high, I wore rainbow striped leg warmers to ward off those ill-feeling moments of awkwardness and isolation. Though I am not sure, they may have hurt the situation more than helped, even though leg warmers were in fashion back then. And the year I entered junior high for the first time, I had those unstoppable nightmares leading up to the first day of school. You know the ones where you are lost in the new building or show up wearing only socks. I sort of found my way into high school and had a group of friends I trusted which helped. I played sports which helped. And I began to like myself, which helped a lot. It was then that I began to realize that the sick-to-my-stomach feeling was inevitable each and every fall no matter how confident and secure I felt about who I was and where I was heading. And then came college. I remember sitting on the front porch crying my eyes out the night before I left for college, feeling a complete panic attack and not wanting to go to school at all. For my first college semester, I never did shake that knot-in-my-stomach feeling, but I did figure out that it was my norm for new things and new situations, so I learned to cope with it and rise above it. Maybe I am quirky. Maybe I am the only one who still gets that knot-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling every autumn when back to school time rolls around again. Maybe you never quite feel that way and it is more me than the season. Who knows? All I know is that as the cool breezes blow, the feeling returns. That panic attack of excitement mixed with complete and utter fear of what lies ahead hits. I usually have to talk myself off the cliff of emotion. I always do, and I seem to make it through one way or another. And so here we are once again with school starting this week, and all the changes happening. And once again my stomach has butterflies as I watch my own children grow up faster than I can catch my breath. As proud as I am of who they are becoming, I am sad for who they are leaving behind. And maybe that’s why autumn is so blue for me. It’s about what we are leaving behind as we journey to what lies ahead, and it’s not safe. But in safety lies stagnation and life needs to keep moving forward. So I will to. If only I could find my red and white sweater, I’d be good to go.


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