October is one of my most favorite months, and I know I'm not alone in this sentiment. It is a beautiful time of year: crisp autumn at it's finest. To me, autumn is the swiftest season change of the year. Inspirational quotations eloquently speak of the leaves teaching us to let go, and about trees showing colors they've hid all year and with trees as the metaphor, who could deny the beauty of such a sentiment. But in reality as I feel the winds of this October tear the leaves from my branches, I feel anything but settled for a season of slumber. In fact, I feel the stripping exposure unnerving, and I'm not ready for my October.
Finding time to look for my bus has become difficult with other things I'm juggling- and I'm struggling with all these time investments that I feel are eating away at my bus plan. Have you ever stepped into your closet determined to purge out a significant amount only to end up with that ugly old sweater you never wore anyhow and three mismatched socks as the best you could do and question your own ability to let go? How bad do I want this? It's going to take extreme dedication and all my extra cash- which, let's be real, isn't much. No, the real challenge is the mental purging of all these leaves that have served their time and need to drop, leaving me bare to pursue a time of intense dedication to this plan- and only this plan. It's not selfish, it's the season of change. And after letting loose the dried up pieces that are literally pushed off by next years' buds, standing skeletal to myself is the necessary preservation of energy I need for the next step of growth.
I began writing this post to untangle all the anxious thoughts that were creating a bramble in my brain. This is one of those times it isn't working. But I'll continue to write anyway. Last week I attended a social media conference to learn more about how I can run platforms for small farms I plan to visit in the bus, as well as how to form the actual business of the bus plan. I learned a lot of snippets of information that didn't really congeal into a plan as I had hoped attending would help accomplish. Perhaps it's knowledge gained that I'm not yet prepared to apply.
One of the things that resonated with me was a talk on authenticity. Much of social media is the selected highs and lows to elicit a response. The perceived mundane is left out as not interesting and yet these regular moments are what tie us together the most. This post is a regular moment. I feel overwhelmed, disorganized and fearful of not enough time to execute my plan. I'm at a stalled point. Nothing is "happening" and yet- that's life. Today's nothing is the very string that attaches to the moment you'll all jump joyfully with me when I announce- "The bus is here!". There's no profound over-arching theme to this other than, it's another day where I'm on my way. This bus plan is a complicated, intricate plan. Sitting here typing (and focusing on the practical steps rather than the overwhelming feeling of foreboding I've been fighting) is beginning to help sharpen focus on the immediate next steps. I need to find the bus. All leads thus far have been dead. And I've had so many roles to fill that I haven't been able to look as hard as I should. Progress is slow. I have things that must be done before winter. But yes, it's still October.