A Statement Of Apology To November//October 62nd,2022

 I have long referred to November as my least favorite month.

I have said the words "I hate November" more times than I could ever possibly count.

The year I was fourteen, I drew dark, defiant Xs through the Os in the month's name on every calendar or day planner that I came into contact with. One year I even referred to it as "NOPEvember" throughout the month.

How DARE November exist?! I used to say to myself. How DARE such a miserable month come along and try to follow Halloween and October?

Yes, it's devastating when Halloween ends. Yes, I think it adds insult to injury that we're already in an entirely different month the second Halloween passes. 

But November is not the enemy.

I've realized, in my adult years, as time has gone on, that November is actually an important time.

November is an ally.

November is the time when fall fights for its life. Though "spooky season" (I'm actually really starting to hate that term.) is deemed over once October concludes, November is a spooky time in its own right. The leaves may be browner, the trees more bare, but we're still at the epitome of autumn...the more mournful side, as everything is now truly dying. And the Halloween decorations...those lucky few that survive...they are even more special now. I obviously love seeing Halloween decorations any time of the year, and there is nothing quite like the excitement that comes with seeing them leading into Halloween, but there is something so special and haunting about the ones that stay up through November. They are the reminders of the holiday that has passed; maybe the only proof that it wasn't all a dream. There's a kinship I feel with Halloween decorations left up through November...We're all so displaced, so desperate to go back to when we fit in, but yet we stand stall, looking out at the world, somehow triumphant, reminding passers-by that spooky still exists, despite what the calendar says. 

While November may be a melancholy time, it's inspiring in its way. Even when I was much younger, despite my hatred for the month, I had a tendency to be at my most creative then, as I reflected on my feelings toward Halloween's end and the sudden shift into that darker, grayer, deader time. 

I feel now, in adulthood, that it took me too long to realize that November is not October's murderer, but actually, its funeral. 

If you allow yourself, November is a time to mourn. It's a celebration and an attempt to hang onto the shreds of what has passed, as well as a mournful hand to hold as autumn starts to shift into winter. 

It may feel like a slap in the face when Halloween night passes and November is there first thing in the morning, while the laypeople all act like October never happened, but they're also acting like November doesn't exist at all.

I'm almost ashamed that it's taken me this long to realize that November really only tries to be a friend to the autumn people, not the bully I've regarded it as for so long. 

November will never be October, but once October has passed, it is there for us, with its crunchy leaves and gray skies, its leftover Halloween decorations and its attempt to keep pumpkins and scarecrows on a pedestal for a little while longer, and it deserves to be acknowledged, maybe even revered, for helping us hold on just a little while longer, before the blinding lights of Christmas burn out autumn's glory entirely. 

Halloween never feels so far away as it does today, the Gregorian day of December 1st. 

I'm sorry, November, that I haven't always appreciated you. I find myself, this year, wishing you could stay a little longer. 

But I thank you for the time we had. I thank you for the decorations I encountered on early morning walks when I just needed to feel something. I thank you for the pumpkins that got to adorn doorsteps for an extra thirty days. I thank you for the gloomy days, and the brown leaves that clung to the trees as I cling to autumn itself. 

I hope you will mourn with me again next year. But I guess for now, I'm on my own.