Changing Seasons, Changing Lives

Today is the first official day of Fall, and I'm nestled in my bed listening to a violent Texas thunderstorm. What is it about these Saturday night blogs??

Being from Louisiana (and now Texas I guess), it has been my wish since I was a little girl to live in a place with four seasons. In my world, only a few leaves change color, it rarely snows at Christmas time, and the breezy Spring weather only lasts a short while. Somehow, I always seem to barely miss the magic of it all....I've been to Boston to see the leaves two weeks too early...I've been to Minneapolis for New Years the only year that it didn't snow (and this after it snowed in Louisiana while I was in Houston, then it snowed in Houston after I drove to Louisiana!) One day, I hope that I catch the falling leaves and snowflakes. For now, the rain will have to do.

For me at least, the changing seasons remind me of all of the changes in our lives. Sometimes, I feel like life is buzzing by so fast that I'm not really "in the moment" - I'm so concerned with the future that it's hard for me to experience the present, in all its fleeting beauty. Sometimes I think to myself, "If the leaves fell, would I stop to catch one? If the snow fell, would I pause for a second and stick my tongue out?"

The title of my blog is "through the glass window", because often I feel like I'm commenting on life from the outside looking in, and more often than not that feeling really devastates me. "When will I start living?", I think to myself. Or better, "When will I feel like I'm living?" Anyway, I think that the change of seasons also makes me hope for life change as well, but one concept always looms when I think of change - Failure.

I want to shout to the world through this blog that, yes, Leslie is truly terrified to fail. There are so many things in my life that I've completely flaked out on because I am so paralyzed by the possibility of realizing that I'm not good enough, not attractive enough, not interesting enough, not "something" enough. I hate that this fear rules much more of my life and decisions than I would ever be willing to 'fess up to, but there it is. Not only that, but sometimes I think that I have actually sabotaged or just not done things that I wanted to do because I would rather not have even the possibility of failing. Well, hello! The irony of that is that I also will never know if I would have succeeded!! This should frustrate me, but I think if I really ponder things I would discover that I'm glad that I'm safe from the failure and that my fragile, insecure ego is still in tact.

I graduate with my master's degree in...hmmmm...8 months. How will I handle this? Will I freak out? Will I flake out? Will I stay put, because I know that as long as I'm at my current job (which I love) and in my current life, I'll be safe from the "F" word? Or will I bust out? Will I trade up? Will I take chances?? The sad reality of all these questions is this: the inspirational writer in me wants to write a "Rudy"-like pre-game pep talk about how I will be different and it will be amazing. But the honest truth is that its unpredictable - I don't know what will happen. I don't know what I'll do. I don't know what's worst - failing or doing NOTHING. The truth is that both options are equally terrifying, but failing is probably a little more exciting.

Musings welcome and appreciated.

Dreaming of fall,
Leslie