9.8.24 - The start of the fall and feelings on the seasons
I am 25 years old, and this is the first year I believe I’ve noticed how abrupt the transition to autumn is.
Is it because I’m older? Is it because of climate change? It feels that when I was younger, autumn would creep up on you through the end of August, one morning a little chillier than it should be, and slowly and irregularly you start unloading your hoodies, until one day, it’s fall.
This year it feels that just a week ago, we were under oppressive heat, the kind where you need to jump into the ocean. I don’t know if my perceptions of time or the climate has changed, or both, but I do know that as soon as its fall, whether that arrival is gradual or abrupt, I become very happy.
Hours of sunlight become more precious. As the weather gets colder and you can trade tanktops for windbreakers, you feel a degree of anonymity and protection from the world. More hours inside, more hours developing and consuming information. A new approach to the gym——its officially bulking season. The mindset shifts to the longterm once again. This is the season you begin laying the foundations for the next warmer season.
Summer feels very much like a season where you cash in on good decisions. You can show off your body. You can spend the money you saved on a good vacation and nights out with friends. If you got good grades you can celebrate a little. But it’s also a season of exposure. If you wake up past 7 the sun is blazing through your window, you already feel behind. You feel exposed. You walk outside in skimpy clothes, literally exposed. You socialize with people, get drunk, exposing yourself to others and their perceptions and judgements——part of what makes life in summer so fun.
The colder seasons is where work happens, and it happens with some degree of privacy. That’s why I am so fond of it, partially. I am one of those perverts who love work and dread celebrating its fruits——the neurotic part of me believes that I never did enough, so when Summer arrives, I wish I had spent the fall and winter better. It’s a terrible psychological cycle that has faded in recent years, but my gut skepticism to a season of celebration remains. With the exception of Christmas.
I love Christmas. Christmas is a time when I truly do indulge. For me, everything I do after the first leaf falls is in part to delay gratification until the Christmas season, starting after Thanksgiving. I can hunker down knowing that, in not too long, I’ll be spending time with my loved ones, drinking hot chocolate, wearing my favorite sweaters. I get to watch Home Alone 1 and 2 again!
I start planning out gifts, planning out my visits to family. I’ve done this enough times as a relatively self-sufficient adult that the routines of the season have become familiar. Booking the flights, the logistics phone calls, figuring out when I need to be back for the next semester/start of work. To me, it’s all such lovely ritual.
As a law student now, it also informs my approach to studying. I remember that last year, I synthesized information EARLY because I wanted my finals season to not be stressful. I wanted to enjoy my thanksgiving break. I also left everything on the field during exams, knowing that the literal day after finals I would be flying out to see my friends and family. The promise of Christmas focuses my energies.
Outside of law school, it’s a time my girlfriend associates with soups and stews, and that’s one thing I’m definitely going to incorporate into my fall/winter palette.
Knxnts