November

I wish that tomorrow I could wake up on the Oregon coast and take a long, early morning walk. 

I wish I could stay there for days.

 And then, after the crashing waves smooth the jagged edges of my soul, I wish I could hop on a plane to a hot island in the middle of the ocean, and forget about everything but 50 shades of blue and the way the humid air spreads so much warmth into your body, you can feel it seeping into your organs and tissues and pores like a miracle elixir. 

Today was the first day I finally admitted to myself that Fall is here. It's been a gorgeous October- I know it has, but that doesn't change the fact that I've hated every minute of it.

Fall is a crippling reminder that winter is approaching and the days have gotten so short, the mornings so cold, the skies so abysmally grey; it's hard to cope with the darkness. 

I scroll and I scroll through Instagram posts of users that I have chosen to follow for the sole reason that they fill my feed with beautiful photographs of warm, faraway places and I can feel my bones freezing a little bit more with every double-tap.

I'm not ready for winter, but winter is rapidly approaching. 

This is the crux of life, isn't it? 

We're never ready for what's coming, but it's always looming around the next corner.

November is always the hardest month, and I've been living in fear of this looming calendar month for the past eight weeks. 

It's the grey.

I wake up in the mornings and I walk out my front door and my heart sinks into my liver.  Grey. Lifeless. Stark.

The air smells like death, because the earth is beginning to freeze every night. 

Work is cold. Evening lectures are cold. Everything is cold. 

My hands, face and lips begin to dry out as if I'm the one who's beginning to freeze over and decay.

There's no miracle elixir humidity here. No sunshine to be felt inside your internal organs.  

Grey is not to be underestimated. 

Grey is a constant uphill battle.

Whether or not we have it easy as PNW natives because our winters aren't considered harsh, grey is not easily navigated, and there are many mornings  you just don't want to wake up to a world of grey. Unfortunately, sometimes that's all you get to do.