As September leaves and October begins. Change is in the air.
The summer is loosening its grip, the evenings are getting a little shorter and one season is quietly making way for another.
A few weeks ago we were at Center Parcs with the family. We also met up with friends who live in Somerset, and there was plenty of eating, drinking and catching up.
One morning the younger members of the family went off laser tagging.
We watched.
And I had one of those slightly odd moments when I thought, It really wasn’t that long ago that I would have been doing that.
Actually, I still want to do it.
I just can’t.
My knees, and my increasingly limited supply of energy have other ideas. There are things I’d still like to do that my body simply doesn’t agree with anymore.
And that’s the thing about getting older. Your mind doesn’t necessarily get the memo at the same speed as your body.
Our grandchildren have started a new school year. The youngest is going into Year One and the other is starting juniors. Their worlds are changing.
It’s all part of growing up.
But I think we sometimes forget that the same thing happens to us as we get older.
People start expecting less from us and I don’t deny that it can hurt.
But a different season doesn’t necessarily mean a lesser one.
It reminds me a bit of my art.
I didn’t pick up a paintbrush or a pencil until I retired. I had spent most of my life doing other things, being busy, building a career, looking after everyone else and getting on with what life expected of me.
Then suddenly I had time.
And somewhere along the way I discovered that I had something to offer. A way of expressing myself that simply hadn’t been there before.
I’m certainly not the artist I would have been if I’d started at twenty.
But that isn’t the point.
I’m the artist I am because I started when I did.
We spend so much of our lives measuring ourselves against what we used to be able to do that we forget to look at what this particular season has brought us.
Yes, I can’t run around laser tagging with the grandkids anymore.
I don’t like that I can’t.
But I can read and draw and walk and listen and write and see the beauty that’s around me and share it all with my grandchildren.
I can still be curious.
I can still learn.
I can still surprise myself.
Autumn doesn’t fail because it isn’t summer. It has its own colours, its own light, its own beauty and its own purpose.
And so do I