Fall Is for Me the Season of Promise and Purpose

By Sondra Forsyth

I have friends who mourn the end of summer. They say they’ll miss going to the beach, wearing flip flops, and having sand between their toes. To each his or her own. For me, the advent of fall each year is a joy. As I inhale the crisp and cool air here in the Northeast, I’m filled with a sense of promise and purpose. In my life, September has always meant new beginnings, new challenges, new hopes and dreams.

Not that I want to abandon what I’m doing now. I love my job as a digital editor, and I like being able to walk from my apartment in NYC to one of the best ballet schools in the world where I can take evening classes for my health and pleasure. Yet I know I could add to the mix – maybe something as simple as getting together more often with my friends or maybe something larger such as writing another book. Right now, just a few days into this month, I’m not sure what the coming changes will be. I’m simply enjoying anticipating them.

The passing of time has not dulled for me the exhilarating feeling of expectation I experience in autumn. I’ve never been disappointed. My first grandchild was born in September. I was with my mother for the transcendent moment when she died peacefully one September, fully lucid, at the age of 90. I reclaimed my passion for dance on a September day when I enrolled my daughter for ballet lessons and promptly decided to enroll myself in classes as well. The list goes on and on as I look back. What will this year hold? That question gives me little frissons of excitement!

I think I’ll hazard a guess. Perhaps the wonderful time my family had getting together in 2018 will become an annual tradition. Maybe I’ll indulge more often in going to Broadway shows. Possibly I’ll make the time to do some volunteering, an activity that is so good for the soul. Or it could be that I’ll wake up extra early every morning in order to enjoy the morning hours before work begins. Whatever happens, large or small, will surely enrich my life.

Ah, but do I sound Pollyanna-ish? I’m not. I’m optimistic, yes, but I’ve survived my share of trials and tribulations like anybody else. All I’m saying is that September reminds me not to dwell on the problems of the past, but rather to look forward to what the future might hold that could be good. I want to live each day to the fullest, and I can only do that if I have a positive mindset.

September gives me exactly that. Of course something unforeseen and upsetting could happen in September. One year, when my daughter was a teenager, a friend of hers committed suicide in September. At the time, we were overcome with grief. Eventually, though, that tragedy only reinforced my determination to find the beauty in this life and to live it with grace and gusto.

Here’s to September 2018 and whatever it may bring!

Sondra Forsyth in a Co-Editor-in-Chief of thirdAGE.com.