Seasons Change and So Do We

My nineteen year old daughter just started her sophomore year of college in New York today.  My sixteen year old daughter just started her junior year of high school in Minnesota today.  I was posting their "first day" photos on facebook, and it got me thinking about where did the time go?  How could it have passed so quickly?

Of course, time didn't disappear without my knowing it.  My girls started out in prekindergarten and then grade school and then middle school and then high school.  I remember all of those "firsts"--especially the first time I dropped off my older daughter without taking her into the building.  It didn't feel right.  Up until that point, I had walked her in to every new situation of her life.

My daughters are not the only ones who have been changing over these years.  So have I.  Every seven years, all of the cells in the body are renewed and replaced.  That's major change at the most basic level. My thinking has changed over the years too.  Things I wanted before and felt were important look different to me now.  I have had more experiences to shape my opinions.   I have had successes and disappointments.  I have wanted things that have never come to pass.  I have achieved other things that I never saw coming my way.  Haven't we all?

Just like the seasons, we too are part of the natural landscape.  We are ending the season of vitality, the season of feeling good in our own skin, moving around easily, the season of the sun.  We are gradually shifting to the season of letting go, breathing deeply and exhaling even more deeply to release what we don't need.

No matter how old we are--we can all be excited about the start of something new.  Maybe you don't have a new backpack or school shoes, but you have a new lease on your personal goals and heart's desire.  Maybe you have an appreciation for where you have been and can look at the future with enthusiasm.  Maybe you are just ready to be done with summer and its spontaneous entertaining and reckless eating.

It is time to reflect for a moment and consider what we wish to carry with us from the summer.  What has happened that has worked?  What has happened that got us no where?  We can then shift our thinking to the future and what we'd like to have happen this fall.   It is time to shift to more accountability and more success, a change for the better.