Autumn

I had a strange thought yesterday afternoon.  It must have been about 5 o'clock; it was already dark, and the weather was grim.  I walked past a mound of golden leaves, all shiny from the rain - and that's when it happened.  Autumn, I realised, was really here.

For some reason I've been in a slight state of denial about autumn this year. I have been paying it lip service; for weeks I've been saying all the right things like "aren't the nights drawing in", and "can you believe they're selling Christmas decorations already",  and I'm wearing all the right clothes.  Even so, part of me has still been clinging to some crazy hope that there might be a tiny whisp of Indian summer still out there somewhere, just hanging around waiting for its moment.

And then yesterday I saw these leaves, and realised it was absolutely, definitely Autumn. Well of course it's Autumn! was the very next thing I thought.  It's the middle of November.  Which is practically  December,  and that's Winter.  You can't go around thinking it's still Summer when it's virtually Winter already.  

I was right, of course.  But the end of Autumn has just kind of snuck up on me this year.

It's not the only thing to do that lately; tomorrow is  my 39th birthday. Suddenly, I'm not going to be in my early-ish, mid-ish, late-ish 30s any more; I will have reached almost-40.  If feels like a significant age, and although I've had plenty of advance notice - 39 years, in fact - it still seems a bit out of the blue.

Getting here has been a slightly backward journey.   I spent the middle part of my twenties - those years when you're meant to experiment and be care-free and figure out who you are - in a very settled (I thought), very serious relationship, with someone ten years older than me.  So when I moved to London, aged 28, I told myself that it would be OK to spend the first few years of my thirties being a 20-something.  And that's exactly what I did. In my late-late-twenties I made new friends, and tried new things, and fell in love, and had my heart broken, and hopped back and forth between  houses, and jobs and entire careers - did all those thing I'd missed out on the first time around.  It felt like I'd been given a second chance and that this time I had finally managed to grab hold of life, and really live it on my own terms.  Not that I had any idea what those terms were, most of the time, but that's sort of my point - I got to work them out.   I really cherish those years.  There were some truly terrible lows - but also some very amazing highs (metaphoric, not chemical ones, I mean.  I didn't go completely crazy) and I learned all sorts of things. I realised the real value of friendship, and  discovered aspects of myself that I never knew existed.  And I had fun. SO much fun.

And as the years tip-toed by, and whispered new ages at me - 33, 34, 35, 36....... I slowly started to settle down again, and do some of those things that you're supposed to in your 30s. I bought a flat. I started to manage my finances (sort of).  I learned about wine.  It happened very gradually, this process of turning into an adult, and I didn't really notice it happening.  And of course it's not over yet.  There are still some fairly big milestones left to tick off; whether I'll ever reach them or not is still up in the air, and it's not as if they can't happen after  I'm 40.  But still, that age feels like a marker of sorts.

And I can't help thinking that somewhere in all of that, there's been a glorious autumn that I've missed. I was so busy enjoying that crazy Indian summer of my late twenties and my extra-late twenties that I didn't even notice the season had finally changed.  Until now, when it's nearly over.  Being nearly 39 feels a lot like suddenly catching sight of that pile of leaves yesterday.  I really am in my 30s.  Well of course you are.  I mean, you're very nearly 40.  You can hardly go around pretending to be a late-20-something still, can you?

I've got the day off work tomorrow, but I haven't quite decided how to spend it yet.  I don't really mind that it's  going to be one of those birthdays which slips by without fanfare -  last year I celebrated with lunch at the Fat Duck, which was always going to be a tough act to follow.  But  I think what I will do, at some point, is find a park.  Preferably one which is full of leaves which are good for stomping through.  I plan to make the most of these last few weeks of autumn.