Oh, September.  I love you, I hate you, I love you.

In September, the heat finally takes a backseat to the humidity-free, cooler temperatures that I love.  In September, I’m reminded of childhood me, when I was excited about the new school year.

I loved from an early age the rush of excitement from a blank page, both the paper kind and the figurative kind.  What could I put on that page that was totally original?  The new school year meant an opportunity for me to be authentic, even though I never knew how, until very recently.

Most people feel a sense of new beginnings in January.  They ring in the new year and start anew.  Not me. My personal clock resets in September, and I use that feeling of hope and renewal between my birthday and Thanksgiving to get me to the first week in January.  I can only claim this of December: I survive it. So by the time the new year rolls around, I’m just trying to maintain upright mobility.  Maybe I should celebrate all holidays in October.

But September!  I love September!  And then comes my birthday, which I certainly hate.  The older I get, the more maudlin I become around my actual birthday, and not because of the dumb old reasons about getting older.  I can acknowledge that age is just a number and that I am as young as I feel, blah blah etc etc.

But still… I do have a some dreams and an timid background buzzing of restlessness.  I want to travel to the world, have a family, write a book and finally figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  And every year that I celebrate the awesome person I’ve become, I’m reminded of how little time is left to get the stuff I really want. It’s all a cosmic crap shoot of destiny and personal responsibility and Katherine Heigl rom-coms.

September reminds me there’s hope, and more importantly, still time. I doubt I’m going to figure it out before I fall alseep, so I can sip a glass of wine here with the windows open and the cars honking on Wisconsin Ave, and think about how tomorrow is the first day of the new year.

I will ride that euphoric high of cooler temperatures as long as I can.  And I will remember that no matter what month or day it is, I can always start anew; I can set out with fresh eyes and a blank page.

I think that might be enough, for tonight anyway.  Happy 38, self.