The best day of my life went as follows:

It was September 9, 2024. By this point in the season, most of us were already tiptoeing into autumn.

“Coraline” was rereleased in theaters to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, and I braved the walk home from my favorite theater without GPS. I had the time to get lost. I let the sun bake my skin all it wanted. I knew I would soon miss it. Virginia felt like my own, and only my own, because most of the people I knew and didn’t know had already left for their college towns.  

​I passed Target on the way home. Because faking autumn would make me feel it coming quicker, I decided on a whim to buy pumpkin purée to make pumpkin bread. I lounged through the store, because I could. When I came across the nail polish aisle, I thought back on how my mother would never allow me to wear black nail polish in elementary school because she found it vulgar. I bought the black nail polish and felt powerful.

Then I went home, and I wore the polish and baked the bread. That was all.

This past summer, I aged slowly. I lounged endlessly. My mother loved me more than ever. I developed an on-and-off-and-on-and-on relationship with caffeine, despite Mom’s best efforts to break us up. My writer’s block became a boulder, and I tried my best to push. It fell back down the hill. I pushed. It fell again. I pushed again. This was all just the first week.

And of course, I waited impatiently for autumn.

I embrace autumn each year, so much so that my summer just feels like its waiting room. When I think of September, I think of my old self falling off me like a crisp leaf onto the sidewalk. When I think of fall, I think of trick or treating down countless roads and never fearing the stranger behind the door. Although sometimes, autumn feels like a childhood friend whom I can no longer get through a whole conversation with without awkward pauses. I’m still waiting for a Halloween that outperforms the Halloweens of my childhood. But I love the world’s love for autumn, how we all fairy-godmother pumpkins into pleasures. 

Then again, there’s no real winter in California. Pumpkin purée is available all year. I don’t even really like the taste of pumpkin; I just like who it reminds me of – the person I become in Autumn. I don’t know why I can’t be her year-round. No season can really be called better than any other, especially on a campus that’s so opportune.  

For this reason, I am trying to be just as excited for tomorrow as I am for Halloween. The best day of my life was entirely uneventful and inspired by perspective alone. I could innovate that way again. I could romanticize today instead of tomorrow. When my friend came to visit last spring, she hunted passionately for the Stanford tree Troy and Gabriella dance under in “High School Musical 3.” She admired buildings I hadn’t thought twice about. I want to go to that Stanford. I can’t believe I ever forgot my first impression of this place was pure infatuation.

There are so many non-holidays to make use of. It’s time to stop waiting. In the meantime, I’ve found solace turning nothings into somethings, or rather, acknowledging the small things. There is much of life I get to walk through this year. Much to see. So many people I get to be.