A Season’s Change

Posted August 17, 2018 by ShanTil Yell

I was listening to a podcast by one of my very favorite authors and speakers, Rob Bell, earlier this week. This gem of an episode was entitled “Everyone Is Your Teacher,” and it turned out to be one of those well-timed bits of amazingness that was dropped right into my lap. The day was oddly gloomy, I was on my way to work when I would have much rather been curled up in my pj’s while binge watching The Bold Type. Still, I had a half hour walk and decided to tune in and see if Rob had any words of wisdom and humor for me. (Spoiler alert: he did.) He shared a short vignette about the seasons that we experience in life, and how the various seasons we have teach us different things. He said that part of the power in celebrating any particular season is being honest with ourselves and letting it be what it was after it has run its course.

Now, what am I getting at here? A few things…fall is just over a month away, and for me personally, summer is ending much too soon. Classes start up again at the beginning of September, bringing with them all the hustle and bustle of a fresh semester. I’m moving out of my current apartment and into another in a couple of weeks–which reminds me, I have all sorts of packing and cleaning that I need to do. I started taking on some new responsibilities at my library job, and I’ll be helping out with publicity and marketing for the foreseeable future. Hooray for outreach! As a side note- y’all, it has been way too much fun and I enjoy what I’m doing a whole lot. Who knew work could feel this much like play?! But the combined force of all these changes made me realize that I won’t have the capacity to continue blogging here. Do I hear the sad Charlie Brown music playing there in the background? Just maybe?

This much is clear: I have a difficult time with seasons passing, even though they’re a natural part of the world and our lives. A part of me wishes certain things could just go on forever and ever, amen. But it turns out we’re not stuck in a perpetual state of day or night or a decades-long winter like the good citizens of Westeros. We’re in a continual state of flux, of ebb and flow. I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to use this space to work on my writing and share my thoughts, and I wish all of you out there a happy rest of the summer! Maybe I’ll even get to meet some of you if we overlap here at Simmons! J