This weather, amirite?
What is going on?
Don't get me wrong, as a fan of science fiction, dark romance and most things dramatic and depressing, I'm a huge advocate for dreary, grey weather. The years l lived in Boston and San Francisco among the cold damp dark and chilly fog, respectively, were some of the best of my life. And now that weather seems to have followed me here to WV (sorry not sorry).
But I'll tell you, this koo-koo machoo May is making it impossible to buy seasonally. We're all dialed in to the idea Spring should be Springing by this point, and this weird rain and 50 degree nights are confusing. My mom always said "don't go barefoot until after May 10th" (idk why but prolly because she didn't want to have to scrub grass stain of our feet) but if it snowed tomorrow I would not be shocked.
The weather is causing me an existential crisis. Think about how we view Fall. School is back in August/September, and to most of us, that has traditionally been the start of the Fall season. All the fashion magazines are showing us dark colors and wools and in our minds the leaves are starting to drop. Pumpkins appear. Cats become black. Our hair quits frizzing. Except now, nope.
Last September, the month where everyone is dreaming about a delightful cool day and excitement rising at the football stadium, it was 80-90 degrees nearly every day. Let me tell you, that makes selling heavier clothing nearly impossible. In what is still tank top weather, we're being shown sweatshirts. And our minds fritz. We can't possibly buy more tees because it will be cold soon, won't it? We cannot invest in more warm weather clothing because it's FALL! The mental disconnect is huge, because it stays warm now well into October, even as our bodies are cycling into the coming Winter downtime and we're facing our hibernation era.
I'm not booking sweatshirts until October. If you come in and are looking for cold weather gear, it's your pre-climate-change brain playing tricks on you We'll all be sweating our 🏈 off until October again, according to the Farmer's Almanac.
So early fall will be tons of tees and light sweaters, to pay lip service to the "must cover up" mental issues that will no doubt arise. Then when it FINALLY gets cold, we'll dive into the cuddly, warmy things we'll want to give and receive.
This is madness. I'm on the screened porch listening to the cicadas screaming, wearing shorts and a sweatshirt because it's like my upper body is cold but I gotta keep the legs out to regulate my temperature. You know what I mean, amirite?