I love a fresh start. Possibly a little too much.
Give me a Monday, a new month, a birthday, the first day of school, January 1st, a full moon, Mercury entering literally anything, and I can probably find a reason why now is an excellent time to reconsider my entire existence.
But fall? Fall is my Super Bowl.
I’m a Libra, so maybe I was destined to be insufferable about October.
My birthday is October 11. My anniversary is October 15. And then, in the span of five days in 2025, October somehow became the keeper of some of the biggest moments of my life.
On October 10, we closed on our dream house.
October 11 was my birthday.
October 12, my mom died.
October 15 was our 20th wedding anniversary.
That is…a lot of life packed into five days.
Celebration and grief. Beginnings and endings. Getting older. Coming home. Losing home. Marriage. Family. Everything changing while, somehow, everything keeps going.
So when I say fall makes me want to rearrange the furniture and contemplate my entire existence, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.
October has become a marker for me.
There is my life before certain Octobers and my life after them.
And maybe that’s part of why I’m drawn to the idea of seasonal living in the first place. Nature doesn’t ask us to choose between beautiful and sad. October is spectacular precisely while everything is dying back. The leaves are at their most beautiful right before they let go.
I don’t say that to make my mother’s death into some tidy seasonal metaphor. Grief doesn’t need one.
But I can’t enter this season anymore without noticing how much a life can hold at the same time.
I can love October.
I can dread parts of October.
I can celebrate my birthday and my marriage and this beautiful home while missing my mom.
None of those things cancel the others out.
Maybe that’s what I want from fall now.
Not reinvention.
Permission to let all of it belong.
The first cool morning arrives and suddenly I need new routines, new clothes, new recipes, a new candle, a cleaner house, better habits and possibly an entirely different personality.
Apparently 58 degrees is all it takes for me to believe I am one trip to Target away from becoming the woman I’ve always meant to be.
You know her.
She wakes up early but somehow isn’t tired.
She drinks something warm from a beautiful mug while journaling.
There is soup simmering.
Her house smells faintly of cedar.
She owns matching pajamas.
She definitely remembers to take her vitamins.
And she has never once discovered a load of laundry in the washing machine two days after she put it there.
I love her.
But I’m starting to realize I don’t actually need to become her to enjoy fall.
Romanticizing your life doesn’t have to mean changing it
I think we’ve accidentally turned romanticizing our lives into another form of self-improvement.
The internet gives us an entire seasonal personality to purchase.
Fall wardrobe.
Fall morning routine.
Fall skincare.
Fall reading list.
Fall bucket list.
Fall home reset.
Fall meal plan.
Fall wellness routine.
And, of course, the pumpkin spice latte.
I have a particularly complicated relationship with that one. As a person, I hate pumpkin anything. Pumpkin pie. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin spice. Keep it all away from me.
As someone who owns a coffee shop? God bless the pumpkin spice latte. I may not understand you, but I deeply appreciate your contribution to the fourth-quarter revenue.
By the time we’re finished preparing ourselves to enjoy fall, we’ve somehow created 37 new responsibilities.
Which feels like missing the point.
Because the things I actually love about fall are incredibly ordinary.
Opening the windows.
Putting on a sweatshirt in the morning.
Wearing cute socks again.
The first time the leaves crunch under my feet.
Coffee outside when it’s just a little too cold to comfortably drink coffee outside.
Turning lamps on earlier.
Making something for dinner that requires a Dutch oven.
Walking past a tree I’ve seen a thousand times and stopping because overnight it turned bright fucking orange.
None of those things require me to become a different person.
They just require me to notice them.
I want more rituals and fewer routines
I’m becoming increasingly suspicious of routines.
Not because they’re bad…I am a person that needs routine.
However, I have a tendency to turn them into rules pounded in to a stone tablet.
If walking in the morning feels good, suddenly I should walk every morning.
If journaling helps, now I need a journaling practice.
If I enjoy reading before bed, apparently I need a reading goal.
As I age, I am thinking about seasonal rituals instead.
A ritual doesn’t have to happen every day.
It doesn’t have to improve me.
It doesn’t need a streak.
Nobody needs to track it on an app.
It’s simply something that makes the season feel like the season.
For fall, maybe that’s Sunday soup.
But not every Sunday.
A walk after dinner while there’s still enough daylight.
But not every night.
A fire outside.
Only when the conditions are right.
Buying the ridiculous pumpkin-shaped candle, but that doesn’t smell like pumpkin, because it makes me happy.
Reading in bed at 7:00 because it feels like midnight anyway.
Tiny things.
But tiny things are usually what make up a life.
Use what you already have
This might be the least Pinterest-friendly advice I’ve ever given:
Before you buy the fall things, look around your house.
You probably already own a blanket.
You almost certainly own a mug.
There is a strong possibility you have a candle somewhere.
And if you’re anything like me, there is an entire fucking cabinet of tea you apparently bought during previous attempts to become a tea person.
Use it.
One of the things I’m trying to get better at in midlife is separating wanting an experience from wanting to buy something that represents the experience.
Those are not always the same thing.
Sometimes I don’t want a new sweater.
I want to feel cozy.
Sometimes I don’t want new home decor.
I want my house to feel different.
Sometimes I don’t need another planner.
I want to feel like I have some control over my time.
That’s useful information.
Because once I know what I’m actually craving, there are usually a dozen ways to create the feeling without completely overhauling my life.
Let your house change a little
That said…I will absolutely move the furniture.
I know myself.
There is something about changing the physical space around me that helps me acknowledge that a transition is happening.
So move the chair.
Bring out the blankets.
Put away something that screams July.
Cut branches from the yard and put them in a vase.
Move the lamp to the corner that suddenly gets dark at 4:47 p.m.
Your house doesn’t need a seasonal makeover.
It can simply respond to the season you’re actually living in.
I think our lives can too.
Make a fall list that isn’t a to-do list
I love a list.
The problem is that I can turn anything into an achievement.
Apple orchard?
CHECK.
Pumpkin patch?
CHECK.
Scenic drive?
CHECK.
Congratulations, Katy. You have successfully completed autumn.
So instead of a fall bucket list, I’m making more of a fall possibility list.
Things that sound nice.
Things I might do.
Things I’m allowed to completely ignore if October gets busy and suddenly it’s Thanksgiving.
A long walk when the leaves peak.
Soup on a Sunday.
Coffee on the porch under a blanket.
A fire.
A drive with no particular destination.
Planting bulbs for a version of me who will desperately need evidence of spring someday.
Nothing to complete.
Just things to notice when the opportunity presents itself.
Pay attention to what you’re actually craving
This might be the whole thing.
When I suddenly want to change my house, my schedule, my clothes, my routines and my entire personality because the leaves changed color, I can ask:
What am I actually craving?
Comfort? Rest? Novelty? Beauty? Structure? Connection? Quiet?
Because I can usually give myself some version of that without blowing up my life.
And frankly, this is becoming one of my favorite things about living with the seasons.
The season changes.
I notice.
And instead of immediately assuming I need to improve myself, I get curious about what might feel good now.
You don’t need a new life for a new season
Maybe that’s what romanticizing your life actually is.
Not manufacturing some prettier version of it.
Not buying your way into an aesthetic.
Not turning October into another opportunity to become more disciplined, productive or optimized.
Just paying closer attention to the life that’s already happening.
Drink the coffee outside.
Light the candle.
Make the soup.
Take the walk.
Move the couch if you must.
You don’t need to become Fall Katy.
She’s already here.
She just wanted a sweater.
