Labor Day Pride goes before a Fall

It's my first Labor Day without my wife, and we both loved celebrating the American workers by not having to go work. I'm in my second week at my new job, and already I have a day off - this is the life. More than anything, today reminded me of crap I'm feeling all the time: it's almost Fall again, we always loved Fall. How has it been so long since she died? It's really coming up on a year. It's hard for me to look very far into the future these days, but it'll be a year come October.

So yeah, Labor Day wasn't that big a deal for me.

I refuse to let my wife's death ruin my love of Fall, however. It was our favorite season, my wife and I. So this year I am going to walk through fallen leaves swishing my feet like a four-year-old. I'm going to get apple-cinnamon candles or whatever: fuck pumpkin-spice. I'm going to close my eyes and smell cold rain off the lake. And dammit, I'm going to bawl my eyeballs out.

It's going to be so hard to still love Fall, since my wife during that last one. I won't be able to do it every day. But I'll be able to love Fall the majority of days. Fall is, and has always been, symbolic of change. It's when the school year starts, it's when the leaves on deciduous trees change, it's when college guys in my town put on thicker and thicker hoodies, but keep wearing shorts because "this cold doesn't bother me." I know all too well that change will come, whether we want it to or not. But change is about adapting. And as much as humans suck in other areas, we kick ass at adapting to change.