Bracing for the Fall: A Gen X Life in Seasons

Spring: We Were Immortal Then

When I was seventeen, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for small town girls and soft summer nights….

There was a time when life was measured in after-school cartoons and how fast you could finish your homework so you wouldn’t miss He-Man. Or DuckTales. Or whatever the hell was on Channel 5 between 3 and 5PM. Spring wasn’t a season back then. It was a sugar high followed by a nap in front of the TV.

We were kids –  real kids. Not “Instagram-ready” kids with curated snack trays. We had jelly-stained fingers and jeans with holes in them because you fell. On pavement. A lot.

Our toys were metal. Our playgrounds were concrete. Our entertainment came with static and tracking bars. Nobody called it “latchkey” yet; it was just Tuesday.

We were raised by TV. By cereal. By absence. And in that vacuum, we made something magical: we made ourselves.

We trusted things; institutions, teachers, adults, the idea that someone somewhere had it under control. We believed the world made sense, because no one told us otherwise.

And for a stretch,  through our teens and early twenties, we were beautiful.

Not polished. Not filtered. Just glowing from the inside out.

We stayed out all night and showed up to work half-alive.

We lived on ramen and dollar slices in studio apartments where the tub was in the kitchen – because it meant we were near the action.

We fell in love too fast, broke up too hard, and danced like nothing could touch us.

We were romance.

We were risk.

We were all thrill and no consequence.

We were immortal, or at least too distracted to know we weren’t.

Spring was the season of magic and delusion.

And it never occurred to us that one day, we’d be the ones everyone was counting on.

SUMMER: THE WEDDINGS AND BABIES AND HOPE WE BELIEVED IN

When I was twenty-one, it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for city girls who lived up the stair.

With all that perfumed hair…

Summer was supposed to be the good part.

The reward for surviving your twenties with your liver and at least one dream intact.

Every other weekend was a wedding.

People who once swore marriage was a corporate scam were now doing choreographed first dances and quoting Taylor Swift in their vows.

We showed up.

We clapped.

We pretended buffet chicken and heartfelt toasts were worth the flight delays and dress shoes.

We bought the suits.

We learned the Electric Slide – badly.

We posed for group shots with people we hadn’t spoken to since dial-up.

Because this was it, right?

Love. Family. Building a future.

We told ourselves we were doing it better than our parents.

Spoiler: we weren’t.

We just had more apps and better fonts.

Then came the babies.

Fast. All at once. Like the universe sent a group text and nobody hit “unsubscribe.”

There was a solid two years where the only thing more common than a baby announcement was a group thread about which formula didn’t cause existential dread.

You’d wake up, step on a LEGO, and cry because you couldn’t find a left shoe.

It wasn’t about the shoe.

Sleep? Gone.

Sex? Penciled in between swim diapers and pediatrician visits.

Romance? “Hey, I folded the laundry. You wanna?”

Life smelled like formula, burnt coffee, and something mysterious coming from under the car seat.

We told ourselves this was the good part.

That the chaos meant we were alive, that we were doing it right.

And some days? Yeah.

There’s nothing like your kid’s laugh echoing down a hallway you’re still not sure you can afford.

Or watching someone you love fall asleep in a heap of Goldfish crackers and juice boxes and thinking – I’d die for these people.

No question.

But even the good days came with grief.

For the version of you that had time. And friends. And a body that didn’t make clicking noises every time you stood up.

We said we were trading the chaos of youth for the calm of stability.

But stability came with its own chaos – just better dressed and more expensive.

This was summer.

Not the mixtape kind with late nights and skinny-dipping.

This was the grown-up kind.

Sticky. Loud.

Beautiful in flashes.

Overwhelming in the margins.

And we lived it.

All of it.

Because we believed in what came next —

even if we were too tired to picture it clearly.

FALL: THE CRACKS AND CUSTODY AGREEMENTS

When I was thirty-five it was a very good year

Fall begins with identity loss.

You stop being “you” and become someone’s parent, someone’s employee, someone who gets introduced by relation instead of name.

You see it in the mirror:

Hair thinning.

Weight staying.

Nobody’s looking at you anymore – not like that.

And while your reflection’s changing, the world outside starts unraveling too.

Your heroes die:

Prince.

David Bowie.

Norm.

Pee-wee. Fucking Pee-wee bro!

Landmarks get toppled.

Pandemics rewrite life.

Politics fracture the dinner table.

You’re still trying to be solid for two generations –

your parents slipping into their winter,

And your kids just waking up in their spring….

And you’re the one in the middle, holding it all together with Advil and appointment reminders.

Marriages collapse — quietly. Unspokenly.

Couples become roommates.

Friendships ghost out.

The group chat dies.

Nobody calls unless someone died.

You stretch before standing.

You check WebMD too often.

Your sex life is supported by pharmacy techs and Bluetooth apps.

And through all that?

You start finding a new kind of self –

less about being seen, more about being okay.

You shed roles you didn’t choose and stop chasing approval.

Fall strips it all down.

And what’s left is finally real.

LATE FALL: THE GRIEF SEASON

But now the days grow short.

I’m in the autumn of the year…

Grief doesn’t arrive with a bang.

It texts you at 3 a.m.

It shows up in your inbox with a name you weren’t ready to lose.

You start collecting obituaries.

You start measuring friendships in who still replies.

You start keeping marbles in your mental pocket.

Names.

Memories.

Mistakes.

Your bookshelf is all self-help and memoirs now.

Your intimacy? Sponsored by Cialis.

Your self-esteem? Injected weekly – thank you, Ozempic.

Better living through chemistry.

You’re lighting candles.

You’re watching your parents shrink.

You’re watching your kids grow distant.

You’re holding more than anyone sees.

But you also stop pretending.

You cry at commercials.

You laugh at funerals.

You say “I love you” first , even when your voice cracks.

Late fall doesn’t offer resolution.

It offers preparation.

It’s the squirrel storing nuts.

Not for success. For survival.

Because winter’s coming.

Not everyone will make it.

But we pack what we can.

We brace.

We keep telling the stories.

Not to change the ending , just to remember the beginning.

We’re still here.

And now I think of my life as vintage wine –

from fine old kegs

from the brim to the dregs…

AFTER THE FALL: WHAT WE KEEP

There’s a quiet that comes after grief.

Not peace.

Not relief.

Just… quiet.

The parties stop.

The phone goes still.

Even your calendar starts leaving you alone.

You wake up one day and realize no one’s waiting on you to show up to anything — not really.

And it should scare you.

But it doesn’t.

Because after all that noise –

the kids, the work, the arguments, the trying –

stillness feels like a gift.

Or at least a ceasefire.

You start walking slower.

You make your coffee in silence.

You look at the sky more.

Not to find anything.

Just to witness it.

To see something bigger than your own schedule.

You stop counting how many people love you.

You start noticing who makes you feel safe.

You stop wondering what your life should have been.

You start accepting what it is.

You simplify.

Not because you’re wise.

Because you’re tired.

But in the simplicity, there’s grace.

You find new rituals.

Lighting a candle.

Answering a text.

Letting the dog sniff things for as long as he damn well wants.

You hold fewer things,

but you hold them tighter.

Old friendships that survived the wreckage.

A few photos in a drawer that still make you ache.

A song that always reminds you of a person you almost became.

You carry less.

But you carry it more carefully.

And when the cold finally comes,

when winter shows up, unapologetic and hard –

you’re not surprised.

You’ve already been preparing.

Packing the memories.

Telling the stories.

Building your fire, stick by stick.

Winter doesn’t scare you anymore.

You know it’s coming.

But you’re not alone.

Because somewhere out there,

others are walking into it too –

hands full of kindling,

pockets full of marbles,

hearts worn soft by the fall.

We don’t conquer winter.

We survive it.

We hold each other through it.

And if we’re lucky,

we make it to spring again.

You start a blog.

You tell your story.

So it doesn’t fade.

“The song is ended, but as the songwriter wrote — the melody lingers on.” – spoken by Sinatra in live performances, quoting Irving Berlin

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For a more in-the-moment inventory of what midlife feels like when it’s all falling down at once, see: The Autumn Inventory