On (almost) a weekly basis I think about how I should start journaling, writing, posting, getting my thoughts on paper and putting them out in the world. And for the last several (many) years, I haven’t. But in the midst of several impending changes in my household, I’m giving myself an ultimatum to write for 30 minutes each week. Not even everyday! It won’t be super polished and it may not always be insightful, but I want to run an experiment with loose rules.
A topic I’ve been thinking about for a while - the August to September transition, one traditionally holding the back to school jitters and excitement. As an adult I still get that fresh feeling, like it’s time to come back from summer and show off a tan (though I’m now a SPF fiend), new shoes (still looking for them), and be ready to discuss all the assigned summer reading (I really should join a book club!). The last few years I’ve gone through some fairly large transitions in the August <> September corridor, which makes me wonder if others do as well.
In September 2020 my boyfriend of a year and I packed up our apartments, put everything in storage, and drove across the country to live in Palm Springs for several months, not knowing quite what our plan was after that. I was eager for change; being in New York (and Brooklyn especially) during the height of Covid was more emotionally draining than we realized and we needed to get out. Leaving for a brand new state, landscape, and potential future together was exhilarating and scary and felt full of potential. The trip was extended by another year and a half, with several months in Santa Fe and an engagement to round out our Southwest experiment.
We got married in 2022, moved back to Brooklyn full time, then found out in August of that year we were pregnant, something which happened much faster than expected. I think I was surprised by how quickly the calculus changed, but also by how slowly the news took to truly set in.
A year later I went back to work at the end of summer 2023, with an underlying feeling that I was rejoining classmates and diving back into subjects both familiar and brand new. There was also a sense that I had to prove that becoming a mother didn’t change the way in which I would approach or perform work. Of course that was ridiculous. I rolled into autumn with a new identity that I wasn’t quite sure how to embrace, particularly in the workplace.
Now we’re once again in September and there are a number of changes on the horizon, forced and voluntary. The dissolution of a promising M&A deal, a new job search, a new nanny. After a slower summer I’m gearing up to embrace the whirlwind and force some changes for myself. Hence, this post! The start of a new habit. And away we go.