There’s a certain point in August when summer hasn’t actually left, but apparently everyone has decided it’s over.
You walk into a store for toothpaste and suddenly there are pumpkins.
Pumpkins?
We were just looking for sunscreen.
And just like that, back-to-school season has arrived. Kids are heading back to classrooms, traffic has remembered how to be annoying again, and somewhere right now a parent is searching the house for a lunchbox that absolutely existed three months ago.
For those of us working in healthcare, the change of season can be a little less obvious.
Hospitals don’t exactly put up a sign that says, Summer hours are over. Please report to Fall.
The shifts keep coming. The alarm still goes off much too early. Somebody still needs something just as you finally sit down. And the coffee you poured at 7:00 a.m. may very well still be sitting there at 10:42.
Cold.
Of course.
But there is something about this time of year that feels a little different.
Everybody's Getting Back Into a Routine
Back-to-school season seems to put the whole world back on a schedule.
School buses reappear. Calendars fill up. Morning routines get rearranged. Even if you don’t have school-age children at home, you can feel the change happening around you.
And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
Fall gives us a chance to make a few little changes of our own. Not the dramatic kind. Nobody needs another list titled “17 Ways to Completely Reinvent Your Life Before October.”
We have enough to do.
Maybe it’s just deciding that one evening this week belongs to you.
Dinner can be something ridiculously easy. The laundry can remain exactly where it is. You can sit outside for twenty minutes, call somebody you haven’t talked to lately, wander through a bookstore, or watch something that requires absolutely no deep thinking whatsoever.
Sometimes that’s enough.
Fall Has Its Own Kind of Fun
One of the nicest things about fall is that it gives us an excuse to do ordinary things differently.
Coffee somehow becomes an outing.
A Saturday drive becomes looking at the leaves.
Buying apples becomes an activity.
And putting a pumpkin on the front porch apparently counts as decorating an entire house.
Excellent.
Fall activities don’t have to involve a carefully planned weekend or a car packed with supplies. Especially when you work long or unpredictable hours, the best plans are often the ones you can decide on that morning.
Take the long way home.
Stop somewhere you normally drive past.
Meet a friend for breakfast instead of trying to coordinate dinner schedules for the next six weeks.
Pick up something good from a bakery and take it home.
Sit on the porch after work before going inside and immediately noticing everything that needs to be done.
That last one may be particularly important.
Around Here, Fall Shows Up in Other Ways Too
Of course, around MedCap®, we notice a new season a little differently.
It starts showing up in the fabrics.
The deeper colors start looking good again. A print that didn’t catch your eye in June suddenly feels just right. Maybe it’s something warm and autumn-ish—or maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with fall and you just like it.
That works too.
After all, we spend our days around scrub hats, so we're probably going to notice these things.
And there’s something kind of nice about choosing a different hat before heading out the door. Nothing dramatic. No grand seasonal makeover. Just a little change that feels good.
Maybe that's really the nice thing about this time of year.
Fall doesn't need to become another project.
You don’t need a fall bucket list.
You don’t have to visit an orchard, reorganize the garage, make homemade soup, buy matching sweaters and somehow become the sort of person who owns decorative baskets.
Unless you want to.
Maybe this season can simply be about noticing the change.
The mornings feel a little different. The routines settle back in. Friends who disappeared into summer schedules start resurfacing.
And somewhere between back-to-school traffic, changing schedules, long shifts and the first person who gets overly excited about pumpkin spice, there are some pretty good little moments waiting for us.
So, here’s to the beginning of fall.
No major plans required.
Just find something that makes the day a little better.
And maybe check on that coffee.
It’s probably cold again.
MedCap® — creating small moments of comfort for the people who spend their days caring for everyone else.