It always rains in November.
The month of November is dark. It is early nightfalls and
busy sidewalks. It is a high workload and a heavy heart, a pensive month and
critical thoughts, a blur of misery and an ache for more. November is the month
we become one with our own headspace, where we listen more to the devil on our
shoulder and the lies whispered in our mind.
It’s a month of standstill and manic work all at once,
itching towards the holiday season with a childlike longing coupled with a
teenage repulsion. It’s worrying over money and getting words on paper, meeting
deadlines and eating three meals a day. It’s forcing yourself to work into the
night rather than curling up in bed, forcing your hands away from distractions
and ticking things off lists.
It’s straying too far on social media and wondering why
you’re bothered over Victoria Secret models or choosing the best outfit for the
holiday season. It’s doubting yourself, attempting to make decisons you’ll
revisit more than once in your lifetime. Feeling guilty over the time you spend
not being productive and the itching your eyes make when you’ve had 28 hours of
sleep in 7 days, knowing your mum will worry about how little you’re eating,
how you can understand why your father picked up his habit of smoking. November
is a month of worry; of stress and conflict, of rain and dark nights, of too
much work and too little fun. November is the home stretch before December
arrives and you’re reaching a new year of your life.
November is thinking of all the things that have happened to
you in the past year, missing friends hundreds of miles away, trying to do
things you think your mum would want you to do like cooking but forgoing that
for M&M’s and your duvet. November is making to do lists and forcing
yourself to complete at least half of them, pushing yourself outside in the
cold and wondering why raindrops remind you of being 16 and heartbroken. It’s
watching the rainfall outside and thinking how it moves so gracefully down to
earth, while you’re frantically completing essays on subjects your brain no
longer understands. It’s remembering old winters, of hands you haven’t held in
so long and friendships you don’t experience everyday sitting in school
caffetrias, of chapped lips and bright eyes, of coursework moans and pulling up
school tights.
November is our month of wonder. It’s a month filled up of
moments we contemplate in cold mornings, in rushed showers and dark evenings.
November is a month where we think back on our past and think of how much has
changed. It’s a month we reconnect to our duvets rather than old friends, the
month we put down our phones when our head starts to fog. It’s a month we
become more emotional, complex by turning off our emotions to the outside but
the waves are rocking in our heads. It’s the month nostalgia knocks on your
door and asks how you’ve been.
November is our rushed pause, the 5 minute timeout that
feels like 5 seconds, the panic of not completing work on time, not achieving
what we want before that clock hits midnight on December 31st. It’s
being critical, dismissive and cold but also desperate. Desperate for love, for
warmth, for a voice to learn like a lullaby and someone to understand how much
November fucks you up. It’s going through the motions while your brain lies
quiet, of forgetting you’re not thinking until everything rushes forward giving
you a headache and a hurricane of thoughts.
But November can also be tender.
November is the month we
become soft; soft in our hearts, in our affection, on our stomach and thighs.
November is buying Christmas themed coffee on Tuesday afternoons and pulling
pijamas on earlier. It’s hands clenching cold air, and then suddenly clenching
someone new. It’s being frightened of not feeling enough, of not feeling the
same and being frightened of ruining things with fear. It’s thinking of home
and wondering if the bed-sheets still smell the same, worrying of old corners
and old faces, thinking of memories and feeling nostalgia wash over you. It’s a
climilation of everything that’s happened over the past 11 months and you’re
wondering how a new year could feel so fresh, how your past slinks back into
the shadows and their face becomes fainter. It’s making plans in December and
cringing over the gaugy Christmas dresses, buying presents and forgetting your
purse. It’s the month you reconsider things each week, each day, time and time
again until your brain fogs up with words and your hands can’t move your pen.
It’s going in for cuddles more and resting your head on friends shoulders in
lectures, feeling hands on the small of your back and jumping, learning new
breaths and knowing it’s pointless. November is the month you wonder what
they’re doing, and wondering too what the fuck it is you’re doing wasting time
thinking about them. November is warm breath on your neck and tucking your head
into a new shoulder, different and new and frightening. Its tasting cities in
their mouth and seeing them stutter when you look them in the eye. It’s old and
new mixed together, skin that smells like Hugo Boss rather than granola in summer
and letting yourself like it. It’s being blown around in the wind, holding
fingers tight in pockets and carrying an umbrella everywhere, taking a few
minutes to stand in the night and feel your emotions wash over you.
November is the month
it never stops raining.
Labels: life
