Monthly Archives: October 2023

        As I’m writing this blog, I’m looking out the window as the first snowflakes of the year fall. Although they won’t stick for long, they foreshadow the snowy winter season to come, and I can’t help but get excited. I’m a firm believer that October-December are the best months of the year, and there’s plenty of reasons why. I do love the spring and summer months, but there’s something about fall and early winter that is unmatched, even by the allure of the warm summer months free of school.

View from my window during fall

        October. I know the month has already passed, but I’m still including it because it has to be mentioned in a blog about the best months of the year. In Illinois, at least, this is the first true month of fall. There might be a few chillier days and scattered yellow leaves in September, but it’s really in October that autumn begins. I love when the leaves change into their vibrant red, yellow, and orange hues, and waking up to the first cold day I can wear pants after being in shorts all summer. I feel like I’m appreciating the changing landscape more than usual this year because I know that next year I won’t be in Naperville to see it. October is more than just pretty leaves, though.  Pumpkin spice marketing comes out in full force, spooky decorations pop up in neighborhood yards, and everyone is excited for Halloween. There’s so many fun things to do during this time, like apple picking, going to a pumpkin patch, or visiting a fall fest (my favorite is at

Halloween, 2011

Danada). I feel like no season is welcomed as much as fall, maybe because people are happy that the hot weather is finally over.  My favorite tradition is carving pumpkins with the cross country team one day after practice – our coach really loves Halloween and fall in general. And although I don’t go trick or treating anymore, I still get together with friends to celebrate. In my opinion, Halloween is the perfect transition from mid to late fall, marking the moment stores switch their displays from pumpkins to turkeys (and Christmas trees, in some cases).

        November. The first round of college applications are due, daylight savings means the days are getting shorter, Thanksgiving comes around, and Christmas music appears on the radio for the first time. It’s a huge relief to have the first round of my college apps taken care of because I now have two extra months to finish my January ones. November might seem like a boring month, with the only major happening being Thanksgiving, but really enjoy this time because everyone has a generous and thankful spirit. I always spend Thanksgiving with my mom’s family in Maryland, so I love getting to visit them. The week between Thanksgiving and the beginning of December is kind of a limbo time, in my opinion, because it’s kind of fall but it’s also kind of the holiday season.

Winter in Colorado

        December. The true beginning of the holiday season. People decorate their houses with beautiful lights, stores put out festive displays, holiday music is playing on the radio stations, and people are generally in a good mood. I love shopping for gifts, looking at decorations, and generally doing holiday activities. I’m lucky enough to get to celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas, and although I do feel more connected to Chanukah, the buildup to Christmas is unmatched. Aside from the holidays, December is just a fun month. Winter really begins during this month, so you can do fun winter activities like ice skating, sledding, and skiing. There’s also winter break to look forward to, because everyone can use a break from school at that point. Winter break is such a good time to reset before second semester starts because you get a true break from your classes after finals. Overall, December is definitely my favorite month in the year because of all of the fun things that happen in it, but I might just be saying that now because I’m excited for it.

        Everything after. After the last pieces of confetti have been picked up from New Year’s parties, things can get kind of dreary in Illinois. It’s bitterly cold, the snow stays on the ground for so long that it turns brown, and the days feel shorter than ever. I’m choosing not to think about the months after December right now – I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, I’m just looking forward to the coming months, and I hope that you are too.

As I was driving home from cross country practice the other day, a gust of wind blowing yellow leaves across the street prompted a realization: this is the last time I will experience autumn in Naperville. 

Of course, at that moment, the song “Where’d All the Time Go?” started playing from my curated Spotify playlist of fall-feelings songs. And I really thought, where did all the time go? I remember jumping into leaf piles that my dad would make from the leaves he raked up from our yard every year. There are pictures of us in the leaf pile every year from when I was probably three years old to sometime around when she left for college a few years ago. Looking back on how young I was in these pictures, but still remembering those moments so vividly, makes me feel nostalgic for the time when I felt like the time to leave home was quite literally never going to come. Somehow, though, it’s almost that time: senior year, the year of lasts.

I’m about to run in my last DVC championship meet cross country race on Saturday. It’s a tradition on the girls team to have seniors each write a letter to the team with advice and other reflections on their time in the program. I never thought that it would be my turn to write one. 

As I was writing this letter the other night, I thought about previous seniors’ letters. Every year they  say something about the time flying by, but I couldn’t have ever imagined how true that statement is. I’ve definitely had my ups and downs with running over the years, but no matter how much I complain about it, I wouldn’t trade my time on the team for the world.

Sophomore Homecoming

Sometime while I was writing, I got the brilliant idea to look through my camera roll and reminisce on cross country. Spoiler: this was a bad idea. As I saw pictures of my friends and I as baby freshmen, then a little older as sophomores, older still as juniors, and now seniors, tears came to my eyes. These girls have seen me at my best and worst and been there for me through thick and thin. What am I going to do without them next year?

Senior Homecoming

I also found pictures of teammates who have since graduated. I don’t talk to these girls as often as I once did, but I still feel their presence in my life when they comment on an Instagram post of mine or send a Snapchat flashback from two years ago of a photo that I’m featured in. As I went through these photos, I texted these girls, saying that I had just finished writing my senior letter and that I missed them a lot. All of them responded with a similar sentiment, basically this: “I can’t believe you’re a senior already! Miss you so much!”

Simple words, but I asked myself again. Where did all the time go? When I look back on my high school career, events feel like they happened so recently that I can still picture every detail. At the same time, these events feel so very far in the past. I guess they’re not so far in the past, but I’ve grown farther away from who I was at that point in time. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine the time when I was the person in those pictures I mentioned earlier. And that idea makes me a little sad. I know that growing up is, well, what happens when you get older, but what if I’m not ready?

The thing is, you’re never really ready to grow up. As a kid, you wish for the independence that comes with being a teenager or adult. But once you actually obtain that so-called independence, you’re wishing for the time when everything was taken care of for you. I guess what I’m trying to say is that time passes whether you want it to or not, and you just have to be ready for what gets thrown at you in different stages of life. 

While writing this blog, I’ve had the chance to think about what I spent high school doing, and really what I spent the last almost 18 years doing. And I think I finally have an answer to my original question. So, here’s where all the time went: in school days, movie nights, Homecoming dances, cross country practices, family vacations, and more laughs and tears than I can count. These are the experiences that have shaped who I am today. No matter where the time goes in the next four years, I know that each experience helps me grow as a person, and that’s what living is all about.