What’s Just ‘Round the Bend for You?

“Change” is a loaded word. It brings with it so many different emotions: joy, fear, excitement, dread, anticipation, anxiety. Hope.

And for many folks, spring would be the time of year when change was on their minds. Everything is new; opportunity is in the air as new things bloom on the land, and in our lives. And I dearly love the spring here in East Tennessee.

But for me, October has always been the Month of Life-Changing Moments.

Everything big that ever happens in my life seems to happen in October. Jobs begin, or end. Relationships begin, or end. I made the decision to run for office in October. We bought a house in October. My first child was born in October. So many huge life events have happened to me in October that I’ve begun to look at the month as a stand alone event in and of itself.

Wonder what THIS October will bring?

Well, for me, this October seems to be a month of travel. I’m putting a lot of miles on my car this time around, driving to Virginia, Atlanta, Nashville, and South Carolina for various endeavors, both personal and professional. And it’s all good!

But I hold my breath a little, knowing the love/hate relationship October and I have always had with each other.

My clients struggle with this too. Some love the fall. Some dread it. For some, the fluttering shower of leaves outside my office window brings warm thoughts of curling up on the couch with a blanket and a delicious cup of homemade soup.

But for others, that same golden cascade of color says everything’s dying.

How we think about change has a lot to do with how we cope with change in our lives. When you know that change is coming, do you see it as an ending? Or as a transition to what’s next in your life?

Think about that. Changes, large or small, are ALWAYS about transition, about moving from one state of being to another.

Because in reality, everything in our lives is an unending circle, just like the blue planet we live on, circling around that sun over and over. Our lives are a rich and repetitive cycle of birth and new beginnings, growth, death, stillness that is pregnant with possibility, then re-birth as the cycle begins again.

If all we see is the ending, we completely miss the new life waiting for us just around the bend.

In the next few weeks, the maples and sourwoods will begin to drop their green for a coat of deep orange and red. The oaks and poplars will wrap up in yellows and golds that reflect the evening sun with heart-stopping brilliance. The air will shift to that crisp, sweet smell that tells us it’s time to gather up wood, stock the shelves, test the shutters, and prepare for winter.

But it’s not an ending. It’s a transition. The year is wrapping up, but next year is just around the bend.

How about you? What does October mean to you?

What’s just around the bend for you?

*****

_{Photo Credits: James Jordan}