Stop Talking About How Much You Love Fall

By

Hooray! Fall is here! It’s the best time of year ever, amirite?! We can finally pull our trendy scarves out of storage, zip up our leather boots and enjoy sipping our pumpkin spice lattes and reading outdoors in the gorgeous weather–while discussing how much we love Fall, of course!

Yawn.

Yes, weather-wise, October through December is a great time of year in most regions of the northern hemisphere. In some places, foliage bursts with warm colors and the air is crisp and temperate. In others, like my native Florida, there’s a roughly two week window of glorious climate between the torturously humid, sweltering summer and the dreary chill of a 90-day winter. And don’t get me wrong; I love that two week period. But the hands down absolute worst thing about this time of year is the endless Fall worship that comes in the form of pumpkin-centric Instagram photos, wistful Facebook posts and constant conversations about how this season is your absolute most favorite.

Newsflash: It’s pretty much everyone’s favorite.  

The melancholic whinging about Fall’s impending turn seems to start earlier every year, with people yearning for the end of summer by mid-July. Corporations like Starbucks are even capitalizing on the perennial Autumn-lust by releasing the hallowed limited edition pumpkin spice flavor in early August to better make bank off of their customers’ nostalgic overrating of all things Fall.

Under normal circumstances, most people regard discussing the weather as the most asinine of smalltalk subject matter. It belongs solely in the office building elevator between me and the mail carrier or the acquaintance who works in the office down the hall whose name I can never remember. But come September the same trite conversation about why it’s the best time of year gets repeated over and over ad nauseum.

I feel like more effort goes into posting status updates and photos that illustrate how much we adore Fall than actually enjoying it. People imagine the turn of the season magically transforms their life from its mundane reality to an Urban Outfitters catalog fantasy of effortlessly layered outfits complete with fingerless gloves wrapped around coffee mugs sporting ironic taglines–all in the soft glow of an autumn sunset. Yeah right.  

I don’t need to go over the endless exposition on why it’s your favorite time of year with you–you’ve always loved Halloween! Or for the slightly more obscure, Dia de Las Muertes is your favorite holiday! Wow, so offbeat! Can we all agree that the fact that you love fall/pumpkin-flavored junk/scarves is a given at this point?

Instead of the verbal circlejerk, I’d much rather do something about it. This Fall, I want less talk and more action. Let’s shut up and actually enjoy it. Don’t tell me about your glass pumpkin collection–tell me I’m invited to a corn maze excursion this weekend. Or bring in some freshly baked apple cinnamon bread to work. Or come to my annual pumpkin carving party.  

Because I love Fall too–duh! But I don’t need to tell you that.