Good Morning: Favorite season mirrors emotions of growing up, moving on

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More and more as I grow older, the weather and the seasons are the filter through which my days’ emotions flow.

A gray sky can dictate how many times I hit the snooze button on my old, cracked alarm clock. It can determine what music I listen to and how often I throw things when my computer won’t do what I want it to do. A warm breeze can influence if I walk the long way to a meeting or walk, hands deep in my pockets, head down, avoiding any sign of life. I’ve been rather happy lately.

I love autumn. I love the leaves, the temperature, the holidays, the jackets, and the fact that the line between food and decoration is suddenly blurred. And, I have said time and time again that I would be quite content for it to be fall all year round. But no one ever seems capable of accepting this.

They always insist that I would get tired of it or that it is autumn’s distinction from the season before that I find appealing. Well I say to hell with them. And then I think.

I think that what I love most about this season of dying is that it is a transition. It is the same reason why I love spring, but fall just seems more honest to me. It is up front about what is happening. The leaves burn brightly for a moment and then fall to ground, brown and brittle to try and blanket the ground for the coming cold. I don’t like extremes in nature or in my own life. I don’t like the overly optimistic sunrays of summer just like I don’t like the dry, biting cold of winter. I don’t like people who are too happy or too sad, too nice or too cruel, too emotional or too cold. I like the grey areas. We live in the grey areas and everyone is waiting or lurching for a black or white. Autumn is grey. I am comfortable in grey.

My life is currently in a transitional phase. It is a phase of which I am afraid to see the end. My college career is coming to a close. Most of the people I am closest with will be graduating in a few months. I don’t want to see the extreme at the end of this transition. Spring is too easy, begging and seducing summer to hurry it’s coming earlier every year. Fall is a transition that doesn’t want to let go. The trees, the principle agents of the seasons, hold on to their leaves as tightly as they can until the first winds of winter wretch them away. Autumn doesn’t want to grow up.

The leaves are almost all down on the ground by now. I think I’ll go for a walk around campus and through the park. I’ll wear my lightest jacket and stay out until my cheeks chap and my legs grow tired. Maybe through sheer tenacity and faith I can keep help my kindred season hold out. More likely, though, I’ve just seen another fall.