Autumn Falls Heavily

Fall used to be my absolute favorite season. That was before I moved to the Snow Belt and had to become a responsible working adult.

Now it means nervously watching the weather forecasts as I try to figure out whether frost is going to damage my food plants and trying to figure out when I'm going to be able to clean up the other plants as they die off for the year. It means wondering how soon I'm going to have to put the clothesline away and whether the leaves will ever be dry enough for me to finish mulching them so I can move the lawnmower to the basement so there's room in the shed to put the grill away.

It means not being able to open the windows during the day, because it's too cold when I leave at 5:30 in the morning, and not being able to open them for long (if at all) when I get home because the warmth of the sun is already fading at 4:30 in the afternoon.

It means having to keep an eye on the weather to watch for combinations of rain and below freezing temps which can make the roads slippery in the predawn darkness, and it means the slow onset of first-snow anxiety. Although I tend to relax a little once I've made it through the first snow of the winter, a certain level of snow anxiety remains until April or May, so fall is also a time of having to try to calm myself out of panic attacks at the thought of the impending months of weather-induced anxiety and fear of whether I'm going to have a debilitating case of seasonal affective disorder this winter.

It means having to decide when to switch the screens to storm windows, and when to start the loathsome process of sealing out any fresh air so that we can at least afford to keep the thermostat at a whopping 60 degrees.

It means having to switch out my summer clothes, which it seems like I just finished taking out of storage, to get out the same boring winter clothes I've been wearing for about 8 months a year for the past 8 years. (Minus a couple of pairs of jeans I finally wore through leaving me with the same 4 pairs of pants to wear all winter.)

Just because death and dying are part of the natural cycle doesn't make them any less hard to deal with. The eternal hope of another spring and another summer provide some consolation --in fact, they are vital to being able to accept this season of dying at all. I can still appreciate Nature's last hurrah to some degree, if I can ignore the fact it is an omen of the coming season that can kill the soul even when we keep it from killing our bodies. I can still appreciate it IF I can carve out moments in which to appreciate it for its own glory. It's very hard to get all pumpkiny-cidery-falling-leaves-are-so-pretty-hooray-for-Halloween when you're stuck in a cubicle looking at a computer screen during 90-99% of the daylight hours all season long. But this year I'm going to try to suck every bit of autumnal appreciation I can out of the miniscule evening hours available and the remaining weekends. I'm going to try my best. I'm still me after all, so this isn't going to happen without a lot of hard brain work and psychological fighting. And I could very well fail miserably, literally. But, fingers crossed. And I do have that hat.

Deja Vu

Exactly one year ago I did the same thing I did today: took Mom back to Dad's as the official final act of my vacation. Also like last year, I feel for the first time today that autumn is definitely in the process of taking over, except this year it wasn't the kind of auspicious taste of the future we got last year. With the dull gray sky and damp, rainy atmosphere there was definitely a greater feeling of loss than of promise. It's an abrupt end to having the time and the energy to make great food, take walks, check out new places, take trips, run errands, and read. (Although I did NOT finish my book, and that irritates me even though I know it's because my time was filled with so many other valuable and interesting things instead.) I also got the news today that one of my workplace pals is quitting. (Who happens to be my MST3K buddy, and I'm seriously going to miss the two of us causing each other to laugh uncontrollably with just a few choice words.) And winter is coming. (Yeah, I know, but screw Game of Thrones. It's actually a real threat to my mental health.)

So tonight it's back to trying to make myself get to sleep before 9. Tomorrow I'll have to wake up at 4, and when I leave the house it'll be even darker than it was last time I had to do that. Back to spending 2 hours in the car every day, and coming home too tired to figure out how to make a decently healthy meal as quickly as possible. Back to fighting all the negative influences and probably back to feeling like a failure when I fail to fight the world off successfully.

Last week I felt so relaxed, positive, and happy that I was looking forward to going back to work. I thought, "This is the real me. This is more of who I'm supposed to be. I'm going to be able to go back and, at least for awhile, show everyone how charming and wonderful I'm capable of being." I had high hopes that the complications and problems that stood in my way before would be surmountable going forward with this renewed feeling of well-being. I was still feeling some of that last night, even though the fear of vacation's end was already creeping in. I give the saving credit to my new hat. I mean, a total stranger at the grocery store commented on how cute it was!! But today is so very NOT last week, and seems a world away from just yesterday.

The one ray of hope I can see is that the distance I've regained between myself and my work may reduce the type of stress I was dealing with before my vacation. The longer I work without a real break that allows me to gain that kind of distance, the more obsessed I become with trying to fix all the inconsistencies, glitches, and problems I can find. Which nobody else cares about or is willing to fix. Which frustrates me intensely. Which stresses me out. A lot. So in one sense, the less I care about things that aren't absolutely critical, the happier I am at work. And the less I want to be there, the less I care about all those non-critical things.

So, while I'm overshadowed by loss and regret, I'm trying to focus on how to carry that renewed energy forward anyway, even as I can feel it ebbing away while fear and resentment start crawling back in. I can do this, especially with the help of my new security blanket. I'm placing a lot of hope in that hat.