What Feels Like It Never Was//October 62nd, 2024

 I've not cared much for December for many years now. 

Adulthood came, and confiscated the magic of Christmas. 

I guess I never really minded, as I've always felt I have something much more magical. 

But still, I look around at the colorful lights and smiling characters adorning the lawns now, where the skeletons and pumpkins and ghosts stood not long ago at all, and I feel resentment.

Society forgets that November is still, very much, autumn. The world forgets to hold space for the remaining pumpkins and scarecrows, anymore. 

But I watch for them. I've learned to treat November like an extension of October. A funeral, of sorts. I celebrate the fact that it happened, and search for the remnants around me.

This year, though, it hasn't been easy. 

October, for the most part, felt like an extension of summer. Halloween came with a high of 83 degrees and blazing sun, as if October itself wanted to wear a costume that made it almost unrecognizable. It felt more like a summer day; as if Halloween itself was still far off in the future, something to still be anticipated, as opposed to celebrated, in that moment. 

November was largely the same, dry and warm and sunny, until the rain finally came. But, rather than bringing in a more autumnal crispness, the cold November rain seemed to usher in an early winter, with temperatures too cold to spend too much time outside, basking in the last of the leaves and pumpkins. Thanksgiving felt more like a chilly day in January. I tried to take a walk that day, but had to turn back after moving just three houses down the road, as the air was cutting through me and my teeth would not stop chattering. 

I never really did get to go on any Post-Halloween Depression Walks this year. 

I suppose what I'm really trying to say is, on this Gregorian day of December 1st, when I can no longer fight back the onslaught of bright red and green Christmas cheer, I don't think I have ever felt so truly robbed of autumn before. 

Yes, there are still twenty days of it remaining, and I will fight for those days, cling to my ghosts of autumn and Halloween, despite society trying to force-feed me Christmas, but the page is officially turning now. 

And we must wait another year for autumn, even though it feels like it was never truly here. 

I don't think it's ever felt further. 

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