Anne of Green Gables once said about how happy she was to live in a world with Octobers, and I respectfully disagree.

October tends to be a hard month for me, the inaugural Hard Month in a whole Season of Hard Months. October is when we have to start wearing pants again, and shirts and shoes. When the sun goes to bed before I do, so driving home at night means dark roads and tail lights instead of open windows and sunsets.

It’s raining outside my window, the kind of hard rain that plunks against the grass like tiny pebbles. It’s not like the warm summer rain that leaves as soon as it’s come and turns everything a few shades greener in its wake; it’s just grey on grey on grey on fallen leaves and I’m bracing for a whole lot of cold and windy and more grey on grey on grey ahead.

If I could sit on the advisory board for whoever decides the Months and Seasons, I’d move to remove October, November, January, February, and March.

With varying degrees of success, I try to have a positive attitude about the approaching winter, embracing the change and all the literal and metaphorical deaths and rebirths it offers. And I don’t think even now I’m resisting or complaining as much as I am admitting and accepting that it is hard, and that sometimes I am sad with an ache that settles and stays like the chilly grey.

For all the beauty my life holds, I think I’ll be very grateful when this season is over.

I don’t just mean October.

I know that most of life happens in the in between, but I feel particularly in between these days. I spent the last few years trying not to drown completely (and was, for the most part, successful) and now I’m trying of learn how to take root again.

There is so much that I hope for.

This blog post is part of #write31days. This year I’m skipping out on a theme and going with ten minutes of unedited free-writing every day (unless I don’t feel like it, let’s be honest). You can read more posts from my #write31days by clicking here.