I’ve been watching the mail lately - waiting for this month’s issue of Vogue.

My daughter gave me the gift of an annual subscription beginning with The September Issue.

When I became an official grown up, Vogue became the more literary version of Tiger Beat and Seventeen.  Somewhere around the age of twelve, I unknowingly began looking for myself outside of who I was being told I was or where I fell in the birth order ( the baby ) and what example I was expected to set for others. Mostly, I had a thought bubble above my head that proclaimed  new girl  in a bold font that was very much not  avant-garde.

I followed the instructions in Seventeen magazine regarding getting the perfect flip for my chin length hair and hung free posters from Tiger Beat of Bobby Sherman and Donnie Osmond on my wall. Shirtless David Cassidy went on the inside of my closet door per direction of my mother. 

A lot of years later…as an adult mother and the boss of my own budget, the September Issue became one of my selfishly superficial absolutely not a need splurges. I loved it all… the ads, the relevant ( to me ) content, the literary pieces along with the OpEd’s were enticing and of course the hello to the new season of fall and winter fashion. It was shiny on the outside with a plethora of trends and color and over priced purses and trendy jackets that I would never, ever possess, on the inside. 

Work and mothering and money and worrying about work and mothering and money along with additional extracurricular activities such as recovering from divorce and completing a Master’s Degree left me with just enough brain cells to remember who had to be where and how many hot pockets were left in the freezer. For months the only reading I craved was an evening of sitting on a floor with coffee and a pile of mindless, surface-y magazines and no deadlines.

The weekend after my final paper was submitted and I held a hood and a Master’s degree, I looked up and fall was in the air which meant that the September issue of Vogue would be there in all of its glossy glory…front and center on the magazine aisle at Borders. (Rest in Peace…I will always love you).

To celebrate the packing away of books on Corporate Finance and Marketing and Thought Leadership, my daughter and I went to Border’s and with a white mocha in hand, I sat on the floor in front of the periodicals and lost myself in nothing but fashion couture and perfume samples, the latest foodie trends, editorials and the fall go to  shades of red lipsticks.

I saved the September issue to take home for just the right setting and just the right time, paid cash money and on a cool fall Saturday morning outside on a deck with more coffee and muffins… I savored every page. 

I have some sweet memories of September Vogue that in a way became my own little hello to the new season…

Fall evenings after work with a blanket outside in the suburbs.

The time I took a reading sabbatical and I had no energy for anything profound or prolific, just pretty fashion pictures.

On a balcony/extended living room, candles lit, feeling a wee bit heart sick after my baby went to college.

Sitting on a porch swing during my first fall of what I thought would be several in a bungalow in the city.

Standing in Barnes & Nobles, fragile and feeling threadbare staring at Beyonce’ adorned with a head dress of fresh flowers on the cover, knowing in that season, there was no budgeted line item for non-essentials so I walked away. 

And now here I am, down the road a few Septembers…

When fall teases us and sweaters woo us. We plan October weekends at apple orchards and some of us have Gilmore Girls marathons and You’ve Got Mail movie nights and maybe we fill an oversized glass jar with a mix of peanuts and candy corn.

It feels like a quiet exhale…a lull. Maybe a bit melancholy.

It’s the space where I can find the rhythms of routine again.

I like the simplicity.  It feels like a prelude to something as it sets the stage for everything that will mark the end of another year.

This year seems to be the one about embracing the fresh awakening of new versions of me uncovered from beneath the residual debris of life in pieces. 

As women in a world of comparison and faux perfection and as a sisterhood of warriors in the battle against aging or dress size or skin tone, we can easily forget who we are deep within the depths of our souls.

Many of us have been battered by words or life or addictions or loss. We’ve been covered with labels of who someone else thinks we should be or what social cues push us toward or what we label ourselves based on who did or didn’t love us or accept us.

Sometime we lose us before we know us.  

A lot of us haven’t even been introduced to our true selves yet. There are lovely and glamorous pieces of each one of us that we would not have discovered were it not for a few unrequested life sabbaticals. 

My September Issue arrived this week with its monochrome cover featuring models of the 90’s, strong women who have lived lives of convention and struggle and stood strong in their beliefs and values and cultures while creating their own sisterhood and who continue to embrace who they are while they lean into who they are becoming.

Maybe it’s trite to think that sifting through fashion magazines can be the catalyst that saves us when we’re trying to find who we truly are on the inside.

I like the idea that I don’t really know all of me…yet. I like leaning into the whispers of who I am becoming and untangling and trimming the frayed threads of who I was. 

The world is in deep need of unity and acceptance and generosity and nurturing and for so many… the essentials of everyday living. I whole heartedly acknowledge that a glossy magazine is a tiny luxury. It’s also a symbol - a time stamp of the little things that let me dream, a reward for long days and list filled nights, a reminder of something stable when many things weren’t.

The month is over, summer is lingering and obnoxious, my sweaters are taunting me and I will welcome October from the floor of a loft with coffee and The September Issue.

Gather your tiny seasonal tradition and let the comfort blanket you.

Hello to the lull of fall and listening to the whispers of who we are becoming.

here’s to sweater weather…ru