There's nothing quite like the frustration of wanting to dress for fall when it's still summer over by your neck of the woods. Autumn's arrival seems to happen almost overnight. Without us being ready for it, pumpkin spice lattes take over pink lemonades, heavy wools and suedes replace white sheers, and patio sangria pitchers are cashed in for tumblers of maple bourbon. All this is happening while the thermometer in your backyard is stubbornly hovering over the 90 degree mark. You scowl at your blue pool and the flip flops on your deck and try to ignore the fact that if you try and brew some hot chocolate right now, you'd probably suffer a heat stroke... while indoors, in an air-conditioned room.
While the rest of the world is watching the leaves turn gold and their cheeks turn pink, you're stuck watching it all happen without you, in your summer dress. Store windows are promising you cashmere, buttery leathers, mohairs, and for-gray-skies-wool, but white linen and cotton is all you can stick to for the moment. It's enough to make a woman go crazy.
And crazy she will go. Below are the seven emotional stages of wanting to dress for fall when it's still hot outside.
1. You Get An Itch Between Your Shoulders
At first, you don't even notice it. You're happy in your leather sandals and watermelon-hued dresses, having a grand time reading magazines on patio decks and convincing friends to pile into your car for Tuesday afternoon beach days. Then, almost as if you stuck out your finger to test the wind change, you noticed it all felt... wrong.
The color-blocked dress in citrus hues feels as outdated as shoulder pads and winged hair and, ugh, why are you eating lemon meringue pie right now? You just want cinnamon! Pushing the plate away, you scowl at the cheerfully sunny scene outside your window and wonder when August will get the hint and leave you alone.
2. Feeling Sacrilegious And Hating Late Summer
As you flip through your magazine and take in all the structured trousers, cozy knits, and butter soft leathers, you begin to feel a line form in between your eyes. Why? Why is it still warm enough outside to barbecue? Why can you still go eat popsicles on the beach and spend an afternoon blueberry picking? You don't want to walk around barefoot anymore — you want scratchy sweaters and scarves that bundle you up to your eyes. Knowing you still have at least another month of this summer nonsense, you take a sip of your cinnamon hot chocolate and try to ignore the heat flash that comes after it.
3. Feeling The First Ache
You catch yourself wringing your hands as you wait for the bus, scratching your arms almost nervous-like while standing in front of your balcony window. You feel a little too contained, a little too trapped. Wanting to throw your short shorts across the room, you tell yourself to pull it together. You'll have your knits soon enough. Breathe. The blanket scarves and taps of leather booties are just around the corner. Now get that eye tick under control.
4. You Tempt Yourself With Just A Taste
"It's just a taste," you tell yourself as you pull into a parking spot at the mall. "I can stop whenever I want. There's no harm in it." You hear the lie in the statement but ignore it. If it's too hot outside to be fall, you can at least try on some outfits in the store changing rooms. It's just sensible planning. You're going to try on some of the new styles, get a feel for what works and what doesn't, and file it away for when there's mercy back in the world and autumn makes its way to your town. Or at least, that's what you tell yourself. But you know by the barely controlled half-run-half-walk that you're walking out of there with at least one knit sweater, no matter what.
5. Wearing The First Sweater Of The Season And Pretending You're Not Dying
So it's 95 degrees outside and you have to discreetly mop at your face every four minutes or so. So what? You look like an ice cream cone melting but you feel glorious in your new butterscotch colored sweater.
Well, I mean, to be accurate you actually feel like death might be approaching in the form of heat shock, but it's worth it.
6. Trying To Find A Way To Make It Work
So while having a permanent sweat 'stache isn't what you'd call ideal, you try to switch tracks and find a way to bring a little bit of autumn into your surface-of-the-sun-like conditions. Maybe if you wear a suede mini skirt or leather shorts? Maybe just a light cardigan to give yourself the taste of what layers feel like against your skin?
But just thinking about sleeves touching you makes you want to dab at your forehead. There's no feasible way to pull this off. It's enough to make you want to bury your head into the pillow.
7. Admitting Defeat
Alright, it's still hot. Like hot, hot. Slipping the sweater off your head and fighting to get the booties off of your feet, you admit you might have jumped the gun a little on this one. Stowing the little snippets of fall back into your closet, you cross your arms and know you have to wait.
Looking out the window like you're waiting for your partner to come back home from the war, you sigh. Soon, autumn. Soon.
Images: quanlightwriter/Unsplash
