October and I aren't done honeymooning yet

No one knows how to welcome November like Montana.

Sunny 60 degree sun one afternoon with blue skies, and just two days later scarves are triple looped around necks and hats are yanked to eyelash level. A single windstorm overnight blows every orange and yellow leaf off of every tree so you're forced to walk through foot high piles on sidewalks covered in a crackling layer of frost and a snow dusting.

It's enough to make a person miss October, just four days after it's over.

But, but- dearest November! Try as you might, this October was too good. I woke up thinking this morning that, well, here we have it. Winter is here. But then I considered the fact that although it might look a bit different, those October vibes hadn't left my soul quite yet. You can take the October out of the November, but you can't take the October out of the girl who didn't just smile for a month straight all for nothing. 

Dear October,

Thank you for your pumpkin spice lattes. I'll never really be above the PSL's. I may have worn my Ugg sweater boots a couple times while sipping on them, too, so there. You did this to me and I'm not ashamed. Thank you for showing me something even BETTER than the PSL- the pumpkin chai. 

Thank you for a month of leaves that I swear lasted longer than they ever have before. Thank you for morning walks to campus that made me late to class by five minutes every single day because I walked extra slow through the University District admiring square houses with brick eaves and cobblestone walkways. 

Thank you for bestowing the Target buyers with the genius of stocking their shelves with all of the best hats in the world this season. The ones I picked out gave me a valid excuse not to brush my hair in the morning and you know, like my dad always swore, my head stayed extra warm.

Thank you for the best creative writing non-fiction workshop that ever existed and people in it that I sort of want to know forever. It made this month extra full of fat genuine laughter. 

Thank you for all of your good music this month. Head and the Heart, most noticeably. But also Wrecking Ball. That gem will live down in 2013 history.

Thank you for giving me my October back. My faith in our relationship has been increasingly rocky for a couple years now.

Thank you for reminding me it's okay to live on the idealistic side sometimes, if only for a moment. It's okay to love those simple dumb things. It's okay to be obsessed with the leaves and the lattes and the hop in your step because it's all sort of fleeting. It's okay to stop and be obsessed with the present for a moment even if it means self-knowingly living in a fog. Nothing is guaranteed, it's good to enjoy something in the moment while it's there. What better time is there to do just that than the prettiest season of the year?

October, it may be November, but I think we can keep honeymoon-ing for as long as it sticks- until I decide not to forget about how much I hate scraping my car windows in the morning and not being able to see behind foggy glasses for a while. October and I are still honeymoon-ing.