Alexandria, VA – September has always felt more like the beginning of a new year to me than January. Maybe it’s all my years spent in schools. New notebooks. New teachers. New schedules. New shoes that somebody swears fit perfectly until approximately 10:17 on the first day.
For families, September is built around beginnings. A child walks into kindergarten without looking back while Mom sits in the parking lot wondering how five years disappeared so quickly. A high school senior starts talking about “next year” with equal parts excitement and terror. Somewhere, a parent is driving home from a college dorm with an empty passenger seat, trying very hard not to cry over the Target bags left behind.
We spend a lot of time preparing our kids for beginnings. We spend considerably less time preparing ourselves for the endings that come with them. Because every beginning requires us to leave something behind.
Kindergarten means the preschool years are over. College changes the everyday rhythm of parenting. A new job means leaving an old role. Selling a house means saying goodbye to the place where a thousand ordinary Tuesdays happened.
Even wonderful change can carry grief. And sometimes the ending is one we choose. That can be surprisingly difficult. Human beings have a tendency to keep doing things because we’ve already invested time, money, energy, or heart into them. Psychologists and economists call this the “sunk-cost effect.” I call it: “Well, I’ve already come this far…”
But perhaps there’s a better question: If I were choosing today, would I choose this again? Would I still volunteer for this? Maintain this tradition? Keep saying yes to this obligation? Stay in this role? Continue spending my time this way? Sometimes the answer is an enthusiastic yes. Sometimes it’s a quiet no.
And a no doesn’t mean the thing was bad. Maybe it was wonderful. Maybe it mattered enormously. Maybe it was exactly right for the person you were when you chose it. And maybe its job in your life is simply finished.
I’ve been thinking about that because I’m turning a page of my own. After writing Hey Doctor Amy each month for the Zebra, I’ve decided this will be my final column. Not because I’ve run out of things to say. Anyone who knows me can stop laughing now. Quite the opposite.
There are more things I want to write about, more places I want to explore them, and new projects I want to make room for. Maybe that’s September’s real lesson. Growth isn’t only about adding. Sometimes growth is subtracting. Sometimes we have to put something down before we have two hands available to pick up whatever comes next.
So, as backpacks return to hooks, college students begin new lives, schedules change, and another season arrives, perhaps this is a good time to ask yourself: What am I continuing simply because I haven’t given myself permission to stop? Some things are meant to last. Some are meant to teach us. And some are meant to get us to whatever comes next.
Thank you, Zebra readers, for spending a little time with me each month. Here’s to whatever comes next.
Say hey anytime – Dr. Amy @heydoctoramy on IG
