TO SOFTEN YOUR LIMBS

august september october november 8th already and i couldn’t tell you how.

time just passes and soon it will be back to this day again and i’ll wonder the same sorts of things I’m wondering now. silly things like will i ever feel like i can make dinner right. and other things, like will i always feel this maddening emptiness when the trees shed yellow and orange. will i only listen to sad songs and think about how alone i feel. november always sneaks up on me. it feels like i catch my breath only to realize I haven’t taken enough air in at all. i catch my breath just enough to realize i can’t stand what’s going on.

it’s hard to write in november—my hands are calloused and my heart is stripping down to its most cliched self. which everyone relates to but no one wants to write out loud. oh i’ve been writing, i’ve hardly stopped actually, but it’s the stuff no one wants to share. the stuff none of us want to admit we’re feeling at all—let alone putting down on paper.  november brings our most vulnerable and honest selves out i think. which is why we all lay low and claim it’s because we’re tired. we’re all just sitting in a collective sadness. It’s hard to write about being sad i think. none of us want to admit it—not in any real way anyway. it’s hard to be honest with other people about what’s going on inside us. so we all just put in our headphones and listen to our sad songs and pretend we’re fine, because we are for the most part. but i think most of us know what’s going on. so we make our dinner and we read our books and we go to bed early because it gets dark at noon now and we wake up in the morning and complain about being tired even though we really all want to crawl back under the covers and hide from these november versions of ourselves. and we all know that’s what’s going on, so i’m trying to be kinder and a bought a new plant and i’m going to hang ornaments and christmas lights on it like last year and i’m going to keep making stupid jokes and spending too much money because everything is a coping mechanism. We’re all going to be fine. we’re all probably already fine, we’re just looking for excuses to wallow. and it’s november so i’m gonna give it to you.

 and i’m gonna make myself a warm whiskey and dance slowly a round my cold room. i’ll see you after thanksgiving when we’re hopefully all rested up and high on gratefulness and hawaiian rolls.  enjoy this period of willful sadness—you know you secretly love it.

  all my love,