Enter October, where the autumn chill sets in and you realize exactly how busy you’re getting, and exactly how busy you just don’t want to be. Around this time every year is when I realize that I’ve been sitting in the middle of this tidal wave of ennui – where I don’t feel like doing shit, I haven’t pumped out content, and a lot of projects get paused in favor of settling into class, going through the motions, and getting through the day. Which is stupid, because every time I come back to just writing on this blog, I realize how therapeutic it is for me. I sort of vomit my thoughts onto a text box without thinking about it, and it honestly just feels better having it out there, regardless of who’s reading it.

So, court mandated blog time. Leggo.

These first two months of the semester sort of bring into sharp detail this mountain of shit that suddenly needs to get done on the day-to-day – obligations being born from the absolute paradise of nothingness that was my summer break. But everyone goes through that transition, right? You pry yourself off of the habit of waking up close to noon, having unhealthy brunch because of pure convenience, and being well acquainted with a well-rested state and get back to plugging away at life. It’s one of the most natural things in the world – leaves falling from trees. But for a lot of people I know, the slog drags out a little more than they’d like, and all of a sudden, they freeze. Life can only stay on the back burner for so long, and the first two months of fall often bring it back into focus at a startling rate, especially for people still out there trying to get that degree or build that portfolio.

You go from ease to crunch time what feels like a matter of minutes, and it’s easy to feel aimless. Lost.

Believe me, you’re not alone there.

It’s like dreadfully slow asphyxiation – air getting more and more precious as the deadlines and obligations mount, and you get more and more buried in whatever you need to devote your time to. The comparison of the now to the then makes you feel even more buried, more stifled, more suppressed.

Breathe.

It’s an overly simplified solution, and you may thing that it doesn’t even come close to cutting you lose of whatever’s keeping you down, but breathe. If it doesn’t pull you out, it’ll start to tug at those knots at the very least. Fixate on the fact that you’ve made it up until now – and that’s no small matter. What’s one more page? Or two? Or ten?

Despite what people may think of it, life was will be is good.

So take a breath. One big one. In and then out.

And I’ll see you tomorrow.