My friend Amanda told me I need to replace my hatred for October with cozy socks.

Well, basically.

I’ve never been a basic fall girl like my best friend Tori whose love for sweaters and spooky season has rubbed off a bit on me in the last nine years of living in Washington. She goes full send into seasons essentially just for herself and that’s something that I absolutely love about her. Her no holds barred ability to show her love of something. Even if that something is just spooky season.

It feels ironic and also kismet that her best friend hates fall.

For me; fall brings all the ghosts out that I tried to keep dormant for too long.

(And not the good ghosts like Devon Sawa as Casper.)

But in the fall the ghosts return full force and cause me to have panic attacks and try to sneak into my brain to tell me all the ways that this is how it always is.

It’s actually kind of funny. There are things to myself that I would absolutely never tell a tiny human. I was talking to my director last week about a few things and I said that the phrase I hate saying to tiny humans and to adults is simply “But you know better”. Because while tiny humans absolutely actually don’t, adults should.

But I still can’t bring myself to say it.

I also can’t ever bring myself to speaking over someone that “this is all there is”.

Myself though?

Fall is that reminder that the lie that says this is all there is might be true.

Fall tells me that the other shoe will drop. That I’m not strong enough.

Fall tells me I’m broken.

Fall has receipts.

That I’ll keep circling back to these ghosts because fall will inevitably create new ones.

But I should love fall.

Honestly.

I’m a whiskey drinker, cozy couch loving, preschool teacher who loves an excuse for product art and a  writer.

So what the heck do I do?

I have to remember that I’m still here despite fall telling me I’m broken and alone.

Because I still show up in fall.

Eight days after my mom died I performed on a stage in front of an audience for the first time since high school. I was in a Halloween music review and the next day I got a plane to spend a week in Kingsburg leading up to my mom’s memorial.

There was no way I wasn’t getting on that stage. 

I needed fall to be something more than what it was. 

I needed something to remind me I could survive fall.

And now, I sit here, with an immensely clenched fist on my emotions, I realized I have survived fall.

Specifically, I have survived fall every year since 2008 when the words in my brain told me the world around me would be lighter without me.

I think sometimes when I write I need to remind myself that I’ve survived the things that I didn’t think I could. 

I need to drag myself out of the hole that feels like I can’t do it. 

I need to drag myself out of the hole that says this is all there is.

I need to gather the hope the falls before this has created.

I need to lean in to fall.

Because fall has receipts.

With love,

Meg