The acorns are falling off the trees, with or without Hurricane Irene's help and it means that autumn will soon be here. The passage of seasons continues and is made all the more obvious by the coming of September. Of course the change of months does not cause climate change, but mentally one moves from summer into autumn. So swiftly has the time gone by! It seems not too long ago I was coming back home to Arlington, ready to start my job search here anew. Back then the area was still coming out of a harsh winter and the flowers were cautiously coming into bloom, not sure if conditions were right yet. Eventually things warmed up and in July we were hit by several scorching days. Forward six months and things have not change much for me and now even the weather is beginning to return to the way it was back then.
Even stranger for me is to consider a year ago, September 2010. I was getting my old laptop fixed and setting my lands in order. A new hope was energizing me and driving me forward. I was going to leave Arlington behind and move up to Montclair, New Jersey to be a live-in assistant. It was not New York City, but it was close enough to the Big Apple. Getting there is far more easier and convenient from New Jersey than from DC. Soon I would be hanging out with my friends in all of our old haunts, drinking ourselves from one brief Pentecost to another along the Lower East Side. But more than that, I wanted my time in Montclair to be used to help me finally break into publishing. Obviously very little of that happened, except for the drinking in Manhattan. Some successes happened, I lost weight, I read copiously, I wrote two novels and a novella, and I got back into writing plays.
These trends continue and I do my best to keep them up in the face of other obstacles. This September my hope is simple, to find a job which will lead me, with luck, to a life on my own. The month is young and plenty of my competition have probably given up searching and have gone back to school. Others who had work have left it behind to take part in the same educational exodus and new positions are open. Unfortunately, when I came back right as everyone else was graduating. Now hopefully things will ease up in my favor. I have to find something good about whatever September I am in. In the past, it marked the start of a new school year for me and because it also contains my birthday, the month has become my time for renewal and resolutions. Most adults use January to do this and reflect upon their lives, but I stick to my Old Calendar.
