Fallancholy

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped and summer was gone.” — A. Bartlett Giamatti

I actually like fall.  I love the whole back-to-school feeling.  You know, that feeling of starting over with a clean slate?  I love the smell of new school supplies.  I love the smell of burning leaves, pumpkin patches and apple orchards too.  Humans cannot make anything as beautiful as a landscape full of brightly colored trees that look all lit-up when the sun shines through the leaves.   Some friends and I used to take an annual weekend trip every fall.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because there is nothing obligatory about it.  I love football.   I like the feel of soft cozy sweaters and thick, warm socks.  There are a lot of reasons I like fall.  There is only one reason i don’t love it;  winter always follows.

I hate winter.  It’s depressing.  It’s barren.  It’s bone-chillingly cold to the point where days go by without my feet ever truly warming up.  The days are short but the season is long.  Way too long for me.  Christmas is the one and only bright spot in this entire season.  I can appreciate the beauty of a quiet blanketing snowfall like anyone else.   Unfortunately, those always seem to occur when I’m on my way home from work , making them much less quiet and beautiful.

My favorite season, by far, is summer.  I do like spring but really only because it means summer is finally on it’s way.  This year, we were ripped off.  Our summer was short and not particularly hot.  It already feels more like October than August.  Life isn’t fair, I know, but how about a little global warming for us here in Chicagoland, huh?!

When I think about winter approaching, I feel profoundly sad.  To me, winter is just a 5 (if we’re lucky) to 7 (if we’re not) month period of time to be gotten through.  Similar to a root canal or blood test.  It’s a nasty, bitter time of year during which I just have to suck it up and wait it out.  Every.  Single.  Year.

This leads to the obvious question.  Why the hell do I still live here?  There are many reasons.  The primary reason is the people that are here.  I moved to this area when I was ten years old.  When I was eight years old, we moved away from our extended family, never to return to that state.  We lived in upstate New York for two years and then landed here for good.  I remember the two moves and how much I hated them.  I hated leaving people behind.  When we moved here from New York I swore I’d move back there as soon as I turned 18.  That didn’t happen because by then I had all but forgotten the people I left there and couldn’t have parted with the people I knew here.  Well that, and I was broke and had lost any desire to live in New York.

I am extremely attached to my friends, family and even acquaintences here.  The idea of living in a different town, let alone state, from my sister is unfathomable.  I’m not kidding.  We’ve never lived more than just a few miles apart.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I like the idea that there is a strong possibility of running into someone I know at any major event in the Chicagoland area.  It’s home.

So, why does my home have to be invaded by an ice age every single year, huh?!  Why couldn’t my parents have gone to San Diego after New York?!  No such luck.

I also love the idea that my kids don’t remember any other home but the one we live in now.  We moved here when they were one and three years old, respectively.  My sixth grader is going to school with kids he played t-ball with when he was four.  I like it that way.  Maybe I like it because I hated moving so much as a kid.  I hated being the “new girl” and having to prove myself to a new group of kids twice in two years.  I like stability and I want it for my kids.

Hubby and I can’t agree on where we would move.  He hates winter too, although not as much as I do.  He says he does but he still goes to Bears games in December.  I would never even consider it, even though I love the Bears.  He wants no part of a coast.  He doesn’t want to have to worry about hurricanes or tsunamis or being wiped off the face of the earth if the ocean chooses to stop cooperating with us.  That’s a big problem.  I love the ocean.  I see no point in moving to somewhere warm if we’re not on, or very near, the ocean.  I want to hear it, smell it and see it regularly.  I want the sound of it to lull me to sleep every night.  I want to take long walks on the beach.  He hates sand.  That’s pretty much how all conversations about moving between us end.

We may end up moving someday, who knows.  In the meantime, I’ve taken it upon myself to make up a new word to describe my mood now that I realize that another Chicago winter is just around the corner and I will be in it.  Fallancholy.  It’s meaning is self-evident.  I guess there is one good thing about winter though…there’s a lot more time to read!

Thanks for stopping by!

Related Reading:

Cold Sassy Tree

Cold Service (Spenser)

A Long Way From Chicago (Puffin Modern Classics)

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