For many weeks now, the stark white glow of my laptop screen has taunted me. Making fun as I type words incoherently. Underling in red my frequent misspellings. A result of my keyboard smashing. The screen is becoming brighter with each hour of wanning daylight that shines through my first level apartment windows. Today, one, two, three, four hours passed by. Still the right idea had not quite come to me yet. There are bits and pieces of my stream of consciousness, but none of these threads seemed quite right. Right enough to describe how it can be that another month has quickly gone by. Oh where does the time go? Didn’t the makers of modern time know that our ancestors solely depended on the changing of seasons to recognize the passage of time? I’m sure they did and I’m sure that if my life was measured in seasons, my most tumultuous season would be the fall. I wonder if there is a correlation between the natural decaying of greenery, the literal falling of leaves from their branches, and the shades of new autumn colors before the cold and barren period of winter.

If it is fall, I have most certainly fallen in many ways. Falling, but in the way a leaf falls from a tree. The leaf falls not in a feeble death, but in vibrant color to fulfill a new cycle of growth and change as it returns to the ground to be made whole again through breaking down and transferring its nutrients back into the earth providing its tree with new life. If I am a leaf, and it is the season of fall, I hope to regenerate in the spring with the richest shade of green and that my tree is stronger than most to carry me through until the next season.

While I stand still in awe of the changing seasons, times, and ever looming future, parts of me that have not changed still remain within the memory of royal blue skies and emerald green leaves in September. They became familiar to me then and I adored them. The sky and the trees seemed to walk with me as I walked each day. As I treaded greatly, mightily, feet pushing against broken cobblestone and concrete paved city sidewalks passing through neighborhood blocks lined almost exclusively with luxurious cars, well manicured shrubbery, and old traditional style townhomes. Dogwalkers, baby strollers, mailpersons delivering while wearing navy blue satchels, flower bushes with bees pollinating, snippets of overheard conversations from stoops and porches. All the while there were those trees just above my head. Many of their low hanging branches close enough to brush, tapped my shoulders as I walked underneath them. I made my way to my old, well loved, silver vinyl top Ford. As I drove they were still with me and I could see them, and the sun beaming through the glass sunroof. As I ventured out on my own to new places, as I’ve done many times before, the trees and skies kept me and I felt a strange sense of belonging to them. Those trees watched over me in a way that no one could. I found it comforting that they remained the same no matter where I was. In September, I knew that as long as the trees leaves were a vibrant green and the sky was clear blue above me, I could face the day and carry on to tomorrow.

September left me as quickly as the previous months of July and August. I reminisce now on October. On how those once green leaves began to turn yellow and orange until those magnificent colors became deeper and richer shades of brown and red. Those blue skies took on a hint a of white and grey. A backdrop to a canopy that now appears as stunning as a sunset on a summer night. In October, I fought a few battles. I won the battle for peace of mind when I left my daycare job and rededicated myself fully to my academic work at school. I fought to remain hopeful about the future. To remain in the present and enjoy it, while my mind desperately wants to devise plans and seek new opportunities, searching for a clear path to follow down the road to my success.

While in this season of fall, I’m reminded of how I have already succeeded. I believe success is not without time, trying, and dedication. Therefore, while my once blank white computer screen scared me to death and to a point of fearing that I had forever run out of words to say, it’s full now and like a leaf I’m beginning to fall into place.