October's Letter
Welcome to October,
Hasn’t 2019 so far been a total ride? Flashing past within a blink of an eye? How can we be this far into the year already? I have barely made headway into my 2019 New Year’s resolutions – is anyone else the same? It seems as if it was only a couple of weeks ago that the first few rays of sun started poking out through the clouds, flowers started to bloom and bumble-bees started making their clumsy journeys from petal to petal. And yet here we are, as quick as our suntans turned to sunburn or as quick as our cosmopolitan turned to three in some beer garden – here we are in autumn. The bright green leaves have officially turned orange and fallen to the ground around our re-discovered autumnal Dr. Martens. The seasons have officially changed, which got me thinking about how we change too. How we think we know ourselves, our goals, our personality, our values and our humour, until suddenly one day we look back over our shoulder and see ourselves in a completely different light – in a completely different life.
How many of you had a list of things to do, things to achieve and places to see at the beginning of the year? Maybe you had scheduled out how you were going to get your dissertation finished with the aim to achieve a 1st? Maybe you had decided that this was the year to finally pass your driving test? Maybe this was the year you planned to lose 10 pounds and tell your boss to stick it? Whatever your goals were, and regardless of how many of them you have completed – I bet that where you were then, back in January, was a life time ago compared to where and who you are now. Maybe things didn’t go to plan, and maybe your ‘best year ever’ has turned into your worst - whatever the case may be, it is important not to lose focus on who you are, who you want to become and where you are meant to be going.
As Stevie Nicks sang ‘thunder only happens when it’s raining’.
The song ‘Dreams’ invited Stevie’s partner to leave the relationship if he wanted to, because she also wanted out. I think this message is something that we can all apply to our lives in October. You may have gone through a few disappointments, let downs, or failures, but that does not make YOU a failure. Break off the relationship that you had with your past self and your past experiences – break up with that narrative of who you were and where you think you existed in society in relation to others and what you expected out of life. Because, life is here to teach us an abundance of lessons and just because this season wasn’t as fruitful as the summer before, it doesn’t mean that your next one has to be as barren. The year isn’t over yet.
Just as the leaves change, wither and die, new buds always emerge the next year just as varied, bright and colourful as ever. So embrace the falling of your own leaves, enjoy the shedding of the old you from earlier this year. Let your old identity and past experiences fall from your shoulders and spiral around in the wind behind you like autumn leaves caught in a cool gust. Re-focus yourself, your goals and how you value and perceive yourself. Time is fractal, nothing is static - a new day and a new season is always around the corner. So don’t wait for next Monday or the new year – re-start now and get what you want. Trust that you are enough to get yourself there. Embrace the days ahead and don’t waste them. Give way to the past months and walk into the crisp October air ready for your next chapter, because, just like the seasons, your time to bloom is just around the corner.
“I know who I am, what I can do and what I want - and I don’t need to prove that to anyone. I am me and I know where I’m going.”