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Health & Fitness

Entering Autumn

The Seasons of Your Life.  A phrase I always thought I understood.  Not to hard, right?  Being a "spring chick" means being young.  Entering the winter days of your life means being old.  Seems simple enough, right?  I thought so.

I learned this summer that it has nothing to do with age, but experience and wisdom.  While some people never leave their summer, they have long days, and they truly feel those days and nights are endless, while others enter their Autumn young.  They encounter the colors changing as the leaves eventually die off.

I've had a rough year.  In February, I lost my job of 7 years.  I truly loved that job and the people I worked with, that worked for me.  While I tried to get excited about spending time with my 7 and 8 year old after having worked nights most their lives, the responsible parent in me still felt like I wasn't contributing to the family because I wasn't bringing home money (even though I'm collecting unemployment, I'm not working for it).  It took me until June to start feeling positive about this life change.  Now I could focus.  I could start trying to get my foot in the door with photography, because its a chance to change my future.  I found a few connections and started even blogging on how I was learning to use my camera and look at the world as a photographer.  Small start, but a start.  And I had never been so excited to spend a summer with my children.  I spent weeks planing what to do with them on what days.  Beach days, glow stick nights, campfires, and back yard water parks.  And, of course, a way to multitask my photography into it.

For the first time in months, I felt like someone again.  I felt like a good mother again.  Like I had a chance at doing work that I love, rather then settling for some warehouse position to keep food on the table.

My kids got out of school on the last Tuesday in June.  

On Wednesday morning, my mother called and told me my dad was in the hospital.  Now, this is a man who put duct tape around cuts to avoid having to get stitches, pulls his own teeth, and once waited for infection to set before getting a piece of metal pulled out of his eyeball.  I wasn't even dressed yet and I was crying getting ready to go.  I knew before I was told why he was there that this is bad.

I spent the next week and a half with my mother going to the hospital every day and watching him slowly slip away from us.  We are private people, so I won't go into detail about how, but on July 5th, we lost my father at the age of 53. 

Rather then spend the fun summer with my kids that I wanted, I spent my summer trying to keep it together enough for them.  To be able to function without crying all day.  To force myself to go buy food for the family.  There was no days at the beach.  No back yard water park.  My camera didn't get used much.  I dropped off the internet for the most part.  I spent a month in deeply hidden depression.  Trying to hold it together.

Then August came.  The kids started football and cheerleading practices.  My focus shifted from the sadness the last month had.  The days got easier to handle.  I got a little less sad.  Until the games started.  

My dad loved football.  I recall watching town games in Hopkinton, where my cousins all played, when I was a kid.  He loved it.  The game, the community, the roar of the crowd when we where winning.  As much as my heart aches every time I see that brown ball, it's been the most healing piece of leather.  I flash back to moments where he taught me to read the scoreboard, what a first down was, and why the quarterback had a list on his wrist.

I may only be 32, but this summer I entered the Autumn of my life.  I may not be done grieving the loss of my father, my job, and the summer that was suppose to be my kids most memorable, but I understand the changes of life.  I accept that death is part of it.  But I also understand now that it doesn't have to be summer vacation, and I don't have to be unemployed, to roast marshmallows in the back yard with my kids.  I know that what I do with my brothers isn't nearly as important as having the time to spend with them.  And while I hope to see my winter someday, I'll be perfectly content to stay in Autumn for the rest of my life.   To not be working my world away, but rather embracing it, and capturing it, both in photos and memories.  And rather then making time for people, truly embracing the relationships I have.    
So, while the first few days of Autumn maybe a cold reminder of the change to come, remember that one day, the view will be breathtaking.

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