A Season for Projects?
After the green of spring and summer, autumn seems to me like a season of decline ahead of winter's nadir. Nevertheless, it is often a time when I get to embark on projects. In recent years, these have been religious and spiritual rather than material. That started with seeking solace and consolation before realising that I needed a sense of connection. That then took me to addressing an issue that has bedevilled me for too long. Somewhat miraculously, I managed to move at least partially beyond it, even if other things got affected for a while.
This flow encapsulates three different years, but there have been material ones too. Getting a house rewired was frustrating because my contractor was dragging his heals about the matter. In the height of the pandemic, adding to my repertoire of computing skills kept me occupied during a return of lockdown restrictions.
Before all that, there were spells of getting set up as a freelancer and then making sure that I remained as such. They were preceded by a career break offering decompression after a stressful departure from a job that was not meeting my hopes. There was some exhaustion too after a stressful round of inheritance legal work that also hit a height during the same time of year. Plotting a mid-winter trip to Mallorca in the midst of this probably was not all that clever.
Moving onto pastures new while in employment was another trend. Much of this was getting settled into a move that I had made already. That applied to the start of my career as much as when I changed my employer much later on. Then, there were changes of scene within the same employer, and there were a few of those.
Even beginning my search for employment after university was an autumnal project. In some ways, that fell into the trend that accompanies the start of many an academic year. Thesis writing began in the autumn, as did catching up after slow progress during my research degree. Stints at two different universities began during autumn, each with their own sense of anticipation. Hubris set in the second time around and was no help at all. In time, I re-emerged from the nadir that it caused.
It is the end of summer that makes this time of year a little melancholic for me. That is true in the sense of outdoor activities like hiking and cycling. However, I keep forgetting that is not all. As I continue to downsize and reorganise property holdings and progress other matters, that is best not forgotten.
