Today is September 1. Today is also a sultry 88 degrees. In my mind these two statements don't align, even though they're true. I expect September to arrive with a hint of crispness, like biting into a fresh Honeycrisp apple, but this September has arrived like we're opening the door to a hot oven. It's a humid, sticky, in-your-face type of a heat, the kind of heat you know won't last forever, and you're glad for that.
It's been a long time since I've last written here, and in that time, a great deal has changed. Two of our children have graduated — one from college, one from high school — and now that the fall semester has begun, only our youngest daughter, a high school junior, lives at home. This feels significant, yet I haven't had much time to process this nudge toward empty nesting.
On the personal front, I also made a significant pivot:
After teaching communications for 21 years at Penn State in the Liberal Arts, I accepted a new job to teach communications for the professional graduate program at Penn State's Business College. The application and interview process took several months, as most job searches in academia do. When I heard that I had been awarded the position, my reaction ran the gamut: excitement, gratitude, and relief intermingled with a trace of exhaustion, and add a scoop of disbelief, then cycle right back to excitement and profound gratitude.
I had interviewed for my original job at Penn State when our oldest daughter was three weeks old. She turned 21 this spring and graduated, then a few weeks later, our middle daughter finished her senior year of high school and prepared to enter college. Closing my own professional chapter in lockstep with these graduations felt poetic, perhaps, like it was time for certain doors to be closing and other doors to be opening.
I'm proud of myself. I'm doing something new after two decades of doing something familiar. I'm meeting new people, teaching new classes, and understanding new policies in a new college and department. I'm stretching and learning and growing.
This September arrives not just with 88-degree heat, but with a feeling of fresh opportunity, new challenges, and room for growth. And, of course, it also arrives with a first-day-of-class photo taken in my new office, even if I'm 48.
