Back to School

 

I’ll admit it — I’m a sucker for this time of year.

I love all the sweaters, pumpkin spice, and colored leaves.
But it’s more than that.

I’m talking about Back to School.
A neat tidy desk. New pens, new pencils, crisp clean notebooks with no coffee stains or dinged corners, pages and pages of bright white paper just waiting to be filled, and multi-colored sticky notepads.

It’s finally here in all it’s glory.

There’s something magical about it — including the fact that even though I’m not quite sure how it happened, my online shopping cart was somehow filled with newTiconderoga black pencils (the absolute best!), a scrumptious new daily planner, and some nifty stickers to go with it. 😉

And just in case a box filled with back to school goodies isn’t good enough, these days my Facebook feed is filled with pictures of smiling kids all decked out for their first day of school finery. Their faces reflect all the hopes and dreams of a new school year. It’s a new time, a new year filled with learning and new adventures.

That’s another reason I love Back to School — it’s the second New Year of the year!

After a long, hot summer, it’s a welcome reminder to hit the reset button.
To restart the clock.

I’ve come to depend on this Second New Year of Back To School for its ability to help me refocus.

It’s like when I’m taking a picture and — Presto! — the image is suddenly sharp and crisp, but then I move the lens a bit too far and the image once again turns fuzzy.

Then I have to dial it back so things come back into focus.

Isn’t that a good metaphor for life?

Sometimes I take pictures and realize the foreground thing I originally wanted to capture isn’t really that important. Instead, I want to focus on what’s in the background — what’s farther away.

Sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes I get so caught up in focusing on things in the distance that I’ve totally missed what’s right in front of my face.

Back to School time is the perfect time for dialing your life back into focus and righting the course of a year that may have run a bit off the rails.

Happy New Year! Again!