The Trouble with October

I get excited when I start to see the leaves changing colors. When the air gets crisper, and I can pull out my hoodies and cardigans. When there are pumpkins everywhere, and it just starts to smell like fall.

I get excited, thinking about the days to come. My birthday. Halloween, in all its costumed glory. And thanksgiving. And then, Christmas.

This quarter of the year has always been my favorite. I always used to joke that I had the opposite of normal seasonal depression. This time of year always made me really…happy. And warm. And peaceful.

Trouble is, now, behind the excitement and warmth is a darkness lurking in the pit of my stomach.

The trouble with October is that my good feeling always stemmed from love.

October birthdays, including my own, spent with the one person I wanted to spend them with. Walt Whitman quotes hand written and left to be found in the morning, and evenings of gaming, with playful bets on who would get the most headshots.

Halloween at my grandparents. Soup in the kitchen, waiting to be served to us after our trek around the neighborhood. Pop sitting on the porch and exclaiming “merry Christmas” to the confused kids in costumes, politely saying thank you while wondering if he was crazy.

Thanksgiving, and the busy day moving from family to family. So much food, and talk, and togetherness.

And Christmas. Traditions my parents upheld. Traditions I always swore I’d uphold with my own kids. Sugar cubes and stockings, meet me in St. Louis and love, actually. The lights and the music.

The trouble with October is that I think about all of these wonderful things from my past.

I think about birthdays. I think about family. I think about love. I think about loss.

The week before my birthday, I sit alone and wonder about all of the things I could be doing. I wonder what is happening, with me not there. My birthday fills me with a little dread, now. I’m getting older. The kids are getting older. There are no more halo nights. No more playful bets. No more little hand written notes. I read Walt Whitman alone in my bed.

My grandparent’s home, the one I have so many wonderful memories in, is now run down and shabby. The porch roof was torn down, and no one sits there. I drive by it, sometimes. No more holiday dinners, there. No more grandparents.

Thanksgiving has become more about work, than about family. I don’t even really have a family to have dinner with, anymore. Not in the same state, anyway. So I work. And the kids spend the day with their father, and his family.

Christmas movies make me sad. I try to uphold the traditions that meant so much to me, but it’s difficult to do that, alone.

The trouble with October, you see, is that it means something different, now. And all the scents, and the sights, and the promises of moments to come are just reminders of times that have passed, and people that are gone.

And that kinda blows.