Free Fall in Autumn

I've submitted the necessary paperwork with two companies which have accepted me as a freelancer.

Freelancer. The "free" is great, but I'm not too sold on the "lancer" part. It sounds surgical and stirs up images of blisters, boils and carbuncles.

Still, it looks like I may become a freelancer before I become an employee, so I'm trying to get used to the idea as I anxiously await my first assignment.

But, boils and blisters aside, it's a beautiful autumn day in Chicago. The sun is shining and the leaves are brilliant yellow, red and orange. While it forewarns of what's to come -- the gray skies and freezing temperatures of Chicago's winter -- fall is my favorite season and the weather seems particularly significant to me these days.

It's about the cycle of life, the four seasons, the birth/death/rebirth of all organic things. I sense a connection to my current job search, my career transition, my place in the certainty of the uncertain.

There's no denying winter when it blows in and pounds at your door. We know it'll bring ice and snow and higher heating bills. We know, too, that it will end at some point, turning into spring and spring to summer. But while we know all that about the experienc, we don't know what else the seasons will bring -- health and/or prosperity? Tragedy and/or joy. We can't know that. Just as I can't know what this job search will bring.

I feel myself shedding some of the old absolutes of my life, just as a tree drops its leaves and prepares for new life. For decades, I went to work each day and did what was required of me -- sometimes more -- and every two weeks, I got a paycheck.
That's not the life of a freelancer. I'll never really know when the work will come, and with it, the financial compensation. I'll be operating in that uncertainty, while waiting for new life ... new security.

Still, I love the autumn. It opens my eyes and fills my senses. And, I'm trying to embrace this fall as I drift off the rooted tree and float slowly (as if parachuted) in for a landing. But where?