Autumn’s Invitation
On Burnout and the Promise of Beginning Again
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the Fall" – F. Scott Fitzgerald
It’s been a while since I last wrote. The last time was about spending a day in another life—a memory I still revisit often. Since then, I’ve been in a kind of funk. To be honest, calling it a “funk” is putting it mildly. I was wholly, existentially burned out. No one tells you how soul-crushing burnout really is. Alone in the car, I’d feel the sudden sting of tears. Sundays were the worst. I dreaded them almost as much as Mondays, sinking into moods so heavy they sometimes spoiled the sweetness of the day before.
Burnout isn’t just exhaustion; it’s a slow erosion of self. I tried to find joy in the things I usually loved, but suddenly I had no energy for them. Gardening felt overwhelming (not helped by the rampant deer population of Rockland County). Painting seemed frivolous. Writing felt pointless. The spark was gone.
After one particularly rough Sunday—ironically after a beautiful weekend with friends—my husband gently suggested I talk to someone. It took days of resistance (“I don’t have mental health issues! I’m fine!”) before I finally capitulated to the obvious and admitted I needed help. I’m grateful I did.
Now, after several weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy, I feel as if I’m slowly re-emerging. Fittingly, this return to myself coincides with the season of la rentrée, that French notion of re-entering: into school, into work, into life. A rededication of the spirit. Even years out of classrooms, I still feel it: sharpened pencils, crisp air, the quiet thrill of beginning again. La rentrée feels more honest to me than New Year’s ever has. There’s no pressure for sweeping reinvention—only the invitation to say, “I will reenter my life with a little more vigor.” When the noise of summer fades, la rentrée offers a clean slate: to refocus, recommit, begin again.
As the first autumn leaves loosen and fall, I find myself asking: what makes my mind spark? That feeling when something beautiful or unexpected seizes you so completely that every nerve insists more, more, more. During two weeks in Greece and Italy this summer, I felt that fire constantly. My curiosity was alive and insatiable.
Back at my desk in the machinery of Corporate America, that spark has, unsurprisingly, dimmed. While others might find elegance in spreadsheets, I do not. Still, instead of despair, I carry a new understanding: this isn’t forever. There are paths out—toward curiosity, creativity, and a life that feels more like my own. In fact, I’ve already begun laying those foundations. Outside of work, I’ve been curating and selling antiques—objects softened by time, alive with history—that spark my imagination in ways a ‘product requirements document’ never could.
And so here I sit, on our front porch in a sweater, bathed in the golden light of late-afternoon autumn. Woodsmoke threads the air. Tree tops glow with gold while the lower branches cling stubbornly to green. Crickets hum, geese call overhead as they chart their migration, and the shadows stretch long with chill. In this moment, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long while: a quiet return. My own rentrée. A re-entry into joy.
