I’ve always thought November gets an unfair amount of criticism.
It’s often described as the monthly equivalent of Thursday: long, dull, and vaguely close to the holidays, but not close enough for the anticipation to feel exciting. The idea of what’s to come urges us to slog through, bleary-eyed and miserable, coffee cups clutched bravely in hand. I like to call this the November hope-despair continuum.
A desperate clinging to festivities that still feel ages away. Anticipation of joy as a stand-in for actual fun. Draping Christmas lights from trees with a month to go before the 24th. Dreaming of the starry-eyed wonder that December brings. Gritting your teeth against the cold and waiting. Hoping.
Or, a slow surrender to November’s soggy chiaroscuro. Trudging home through soupy 4 p.m. twilight. Salt and slush staining the boots you pulled from your closet last weekend. Succumbing to the frosty air that will linger for months. Despairing.
Whether you choose to hope or despair, everything slows down in November. I think that’s why people hate it so much. The three months that follow are just as cold and dark, often more so, yet they don’t receive the same disdain. But November is the inception of winter: the moment when summer’s heat and stretched-out days finally fall out of reach. A smear of distant white lingers in the rearview mirror.
Something shifts in me during the unending rain, steely clouds, and ever-encroaching twilight. I’m filled with a sudden urge to reread books until I can recite the first chapter from memory. I want to watch a movie, then the director’s cut, then cast interviews and deep dives about its influences. I want to choose a recipe I love and make it every day until I can cook it by heart.I want to stay with things until I’ve gotten everything from them, until I know them as well as I know myself.
Even though I’m no longer a teenager, I still think about how that stage of life is tied to obsession and nostalgia. There’s something pure about loving something so much you want to absorb it. Not for a fleeting rush of enjoyment, but as a long-term companion. Love should add to who you are, not just distract you from what you are. It should wind itself into your memory, shaping the way you think.
When I scroll through social media, I’m flooded with an endless carousel of products, trends, and ideas. Yet so few of them feel built to be loved. They’re designed for a dopamine hit, the brief excitement of clicking “add to cart,” the flash-bang of neurons firing into the void. In a culture that constantly pushes us toward whatever is newest and shiniest, depth becomes harder. So does attention.
There’s so much of everything that focusing on one thing feels impossible. It’s easy to spend another hour scrolling through unboxing videos I’ll forget by morning. But in winter, something slows down. It becomes easier to peel myself away from the noise and return to the things that make me feel grounded.
Instead of organizing my life by semesters or calendar reminders, I start to track time the way I track stories. I remember the month I fell in love with my favourite band, the weeks I spent binge-reading Tolstoy, the year I carried a book everywhere I went. When I love something deeply enough to really know it, time stops feeling linear. It becomes something physical, like soft paper or the smell of glue binding pages together. My life becomes a series of eras defined by quiet obsessions: watching old cartoons, learning to make the perfect matcha latte, rereading a book until the spine gives out.
There’s something grounding about drinking a cup of tea and remembering who you were last November.