Autumn Paradoxes

I love the autumn...everything from the gloomy damp chilly days that
smell like snow and fallen leaves, to the smell of spiced cider and
apple butter cooking in the slow cooker.
I love shopping on crisp days when the sky is eternally blue and forms a backdrop for the
colorful hillsides.
I love making and freezing pumpkin puree for the year to come.
I hate the fact that this year, try as I might, I
couldn't cut the pumpkin enough to bake it - because my hands are so
crippled with arthritis - and I had to throw it out.

I love reading about new fall recipes and ideas for the BIG dinner to come.
I hate that we have no BIG dinner coming.
I hate that we have no family to laugh, argue, and gather with.
I love/hate the fact that the three of us go out to a sushi restaurant and eat a lot of sushi and then go and see a movie - and that is our lonely, private celebration.
I hate the fact that two years ago my father in law died...and we got
the word as we were on the road going to the said sushi restaurant on Thanksgiving Day.
I love to take out my fall decorations from the box in my closet downstairs to try to make my house look festive for a holiday that won't come.
I hate the fact that every year, I end up in the hospital and too sick to remove the decorations and they often stay up until April.
I hate the fact that Eric tells me not to bother with them because I won't be there to put them away.....................
.......................and I hate the fact that he is usually right.

Autumn is a time of conflicting emotions; has always been for me.
A time of joy and anticipation and deep sorrow and disillusionment.
But then most families are pretty full of all of these things as well.
So fall is a time to be with family to enjoy the marvelous, put up with the bad and cry with the sad...But it all is still good.