Standing at the threshold of the end of summer

It's nearly September, and we're standing at the threshold of the new year. Sure, January might mark the traditional "new year" and definitely offers a fresh start in its own way. But for those of us who grew up in an academic setting (i.e., all of us who spent at least 12 formative years in school), September carries back to school energy. A feeling of fresh beginnings, a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils, and crisp, blank pages ready for us to write our next chapter.

But depending on what part of the world you're in, late August and early September may still feel like summer: hot muggy days, sand tracked through the house, cold salads and popsicles eaten in the backyard. How can we be expected to transition to the structure and orderliness of September days with its regimented back-to-school energy, while we're still living through the last days of summer, which carries more relaxed rhythms along with the thick, hot air?

It's a reminder for us that in most cases, transitions are not binary. There is not one single moment you can pinpoint that is "before" and one moment that is "after". Sure, this can happen in some cases, but for the most part, transitions are gradual, subtle—often times they sneak up on us. When does a baby turn from a baby into a kid, a kid to a teenager, a teenager to an adult? How do we know we're ever truly adults, for that matter?

It can be tempting to treat transitions like a doorway: we're here on one side of the doorway, then we step through, and we're on the other. But transitions are more like a hallway (hat tip to the wonderful Emily P. Freeman for this apt metaphor)—we don't know exactly how long the hallway is. We don't know how long will we be standing in the hallway. We don't know how we'll ourselves change while we stay in the hallway. We don't know if the door that we're standing in front of will open, or if we'll be meant to walk further down the hallway and go through a different door.

So when we talk about standing at the threshold of a new year, just like we are right now, with September about to descend on us? It's partly a fiction and yet at the same time, it's also true. We are standing on the threshold, yes, but we don't get the luxury of stepping over the threshold in one smooth, confident, easy step. We have to stand here for a bit, one leg raised inelegantly, trying to keep our balance and not fall over. We have to try to keep one foot grounded in the right-now reality of our summer rhythms and energy, even if we find ourselves longing to rush forward into the promise of more routines, structure, and order that autumn seems to offer. (We'll leave it to another day to decide if that autumnal promise is true or not.)

We can try to learn to get comfortable standing in that threshold. Discovering how to allow ourselves to be in both places at once– but also, in neither. We can learn to exist in a liminal space. But we can also give ourselves compassion when we want so much to just be on one side or the other, thank you very much. It is so incredibly normal and natural and human to want to choose a side, to stride confidently through the door, to have this awkward phase of transition and uncertainty brushed away and left behind.

If you find yourself less than patient with your loved ones this week? Or managing unexpected waves of grief? Or battling an out-of-left-field rush of pressure to get a summer project done before fall hits? Be kind to yourself. Be gentle with yourself. Recognize that you're dealing with the discomfort of living in a threshold season. Give yourself grace in this uncomfortable season of transition. And remember that you're not alone.