Fall is without a doubt my favourite season. The crisp leaves that crackle under your feet, the bite in the morning air and the palpable feeling that everything is about to change. Ever since I was a young girl wandering the aisles of Staples to procure more duo-tangs than anyone could ever need, I've associated fall as the perfect blank slate.
Immaculate white sneakers, untouched agendas, and sharpened pencil crayons just waiting to be unearthed and used.
Labour Day feels like my New Years Eve. And while the world around me is slowing down, and settling in for a long winter, I feel the most invigorated. The most inspired to challenge myself and shed off the previous years version of who I was for the shiny new scuff-free Marielle. It has always felt like the time of year where anything is possible and I can be anyone I want to be.
Lately I've found myself contemplating this desire for change with the harsh reality that technically "Back To School" doesn't apply to me anymore. I have no excuse to buy new stationary, drastically revamp my wardrobe, or wistfully lament the final days of summer. I've long since traded in my backpack for a purse and now affectionately refer to my car as the ultimate adult locker. And yet there that feeling remains, tugging on my sleeve, telling me that with every passing day of autumn it's time to restart my year.
So this fall I've decided to give into that nostalgia and allow myself to celebrate this as the start of my year. Instead of textbooks I bought new cookbooks, a couple issues of Darling magazine and Aziz Ansari's book (all of which I highly recommend). I have set goals, re-evaluted my priorities and yes bought a couple new outfits. I so strongly believe that, regardless of if we find ourselves in the confines of formal education, we should never forgo the desire to learn. That still we should pursue knowledge and acquire skills with that same veracity I see in the eyes of children who truly are going back to school this week. To me, under everything that feeling encompasses, that back to school feeling is simply an internal need for self betterment and one that I think we need to keep listening to.
And while I may not own perfectly white sneakers anymore, I am currently eyeing up my brand new perfectly untouched agenda. Happy New (school) Year!
