I turned on the heat

Another season come and gone; fall has arrived, with its cooler temperatures and earlier and earlier sunsets. Today, I turned on the heat.

It’s early to be switching from cool to heat on the thermostat; I’d been hopeful that I’d be able to hold out until the end of the month at least. But it was not to be. It’s been a gloomy few days, remnants of a hurricane that devastated the Southwest coast of Florida was making itself known as its lingering effects will stick around for another couple of days. This morning, I woke up feeling colder than usual and didn’t sit on the back porch with my coffee. The thermostat read 65. I put on socks, jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and a sweatshirt. Even with a hot cup of coffee, I felt chilled to the bone. So, I turned on the heat.

I took the photo for this post on a cool, but not chilly, morning walk last Wednesday morning. The day was a pleasant one – dry, sunny, temperatures climbing to low 70s. A perfect early autumn day. A day that felt like maybe I could hold out on adjusting the thermostat just a little longer. A day that felt like it required hopefulness. How could I not be hopeful, and smiling, on such a day? I wasn’t mentally prepared for the sharp turn into real autumn, when rainy days feel that much more melancholy because the chill is edged with damp, and cuts right through, with no regard for preparedness (or lack thereof.)

Once upon a time, I loved the chill in the air and the early sunsets; the season of cozy sweaters and snuggly blankets, firepits and fireplaces. I don’t know how I feel about autumn anymore. Truth is, I am not sure I know how I feel about many things, anymore. Life has become a series of re-experiences; I’m re-experiencing everything now – from seasons to situations, from perspectives to people. I’m re-experiencing my own responses to everything, too. Life is very different when you step out of old, worn and well-known, familiar patterns and see them with new eyes. Frankly, it’s exhausting.

Once upon a time, I was an extrovert – at least, I thought I was – and loved a party in a room full of people, and the more new people I could meet, the more exhilirating it was. Oh, good lord, how times have changed. While I certainly can find joy in being amongst pleasant people, it is not something I can do with great frequency, and as I have very recently learned, I need to space these encounters out or I will be wrung dry.

I learned this the hard way last week, when I attended an event in town on a Saturday, spent Sunday with a person I’d only recently met, and spent Wednesday evening assisting at a gala event for work, which required a lot of smiling, greeting and being gracious to people I’d never met in person before. Peopling is exhausting. It is a Herculean effort to “people” with any regularity.

What does this aversion to being social have to do with the aversion to switching seasons? Damned if I know. They seem related, though, because I’ve just realized that I once loved both of those things, or at least thought I did, and now I’m feeling them both a bit differently. Maybe aversion is too harsh a word to use; perhaps it is that I am re-experiencing these things and finding this version of me has a different point of view. It’s a paradox: I long for human interaction, but find it draining; I enjoy the crispness and color of fall, but am saddened by the loss of natural light and warmth.

Today, I avoided “peopling” and tried not to notice what time the sun set. I did, however, have to turn on the heat.