The highway may have many lanes, but you can only travel in one direction. I choose forward. There are things to see, things to accomplish, there is only a future.
My past, the parts that hurt, is behind me. What’s ahead is unknown.
There will be times, there always is, where you feel you are running on empty. You are not. If you keep your heart full of love and your mind full of gratitude, you can move forward through anything.

I wrote this passage in a journal about two years ago, as I was preparing to drive to what is now my home. I was leaving behind a city, one with many solid memories, but was departing at the end of a September full of grief.

There is something about September that gets you thinking. It could be that flipping the page on a calendar alerts you to what is about to come. At any time, summer’s heat will succumb to frost, and the leaves will turn and then fall. Autumn is close, winter arriving soon thereafter.

It is the life cycle we have become accustomed to. It is organic, and true.

It might also be that the most influential years of our lives are marked by this month. The return to school was as natural as the killing frosts. Even as parents, our clock is more set to the ninth month, and the return to school, than the other 11.

September spells change.

Almost two years ago I made a major change. After shedding material possessions that were simply weighing me down, I packed my car with what would fit: my art, a few books, clothing, a computer, stereo, and some of my records. These were the things that would sustain me, but not all that mattered.

As I wrote in my journal “All I really need doesn’t require space in the car; only space in your heart and your head.”

I arrived in a new city with hope, plans and dreams. It was time for a change, and I knew it. I knew I needed it

Two years isn’t a lot of time, but in that period I have accomplished goals, or found many of the things I believed I needed, or was looking for. There are still a few wants, or desires, but I am more patient now than I was even then.

It’s not that a made a list (I probably should have) but I’ve managed to check off a few boxes. I am comfortable with a new city, but becoming even more comfortable with my self.

I have learned to approach things differently, and while shedding many of the patterns that may have held me back, I have managed to continue (if not further) the practices that keep me growing artistically and, above that, personally.

No longer do I place the same limitations on what I can and cannot do, and perhaps I have discovered why I am driven to certain extremes. These extremes are no longer uncomfortable. These extremes are where I live.

It’s funny how September forces you to reflect. I did today, and I did so with love and with gratitude. That’s not a bad way to either end a season, or begin another.