it’s fall and i am a new person and i have a cardigan to prove it

buying my way to my future self

i walk outside to buy oat milk at my bodega and feel a chill in the air i haven’t experienced in months, i immediately send an ambitious depop offer for an agnes b snap front cardigan for half the price of its retail (influenced by

Emilia Petrarca

, naturally). i envision wearing it to the union square farmers market with a pair of leggings and sneakers with red ankle socks after 8 am pilates class (i don’t go to pilates). at the farmers market i have no list but i am instinctively letting the seasons dictate my palette, somehow all my ingredients will seamlessly create a meal i make from scratch (i don’t cook). tuesday was the first day back at work after everyone’s summer holidays, i set my alarm to make sure i would be at my desk by 8 am. why? can’t say. sure, i wanted to clear my bursting inbox out and get ahead of a few tasks i knew would be waiting for me like a starving pet, but there was no reason to be there so early. it was as if the first day after labor day weekend was enough to shock my body with the rigidity my gummy summer self dissolved. i tell myself that summer is for basking in indulgences and burning in the pleasure of laziness and fall is for crisp clarity and disciplined structure.

each morning becomes slightly chillier after that tuesday, i write my “back-to-school” intentions in my little red notebook in a framework similar to a syllabus, the structure soothing me as a conduit for success. i text in a group chat, “think i’m going to dye my hair pink again this weekend” as to signal that my sun-bleached highlights were from Summer Emily, i’m different now. i wear outfits to work that are slightly more uncomfortable than my usual office uniform of a t-shirt and pleated mini skirt. i find my old gua sha and repeatedly go over the crevices in my face with slightly too much pressure, addicted to the self-oppressing force caressing the parts of myself i used to hate. afterwards i put on a goop glycolic acid face peel, it burns so strongly my fingers twitch but that’s okay that just means it’s working so well. i update my calendar and feel comforted by the packed days of dinners and trips and parties, no more time for languishing and laying and ruminating. i start looking for a new therapist, envisioning i will find the perfect one who will gently tell me exactly what is wrong with me, how to fix it and also accepts blue cross blue shield; i will be a floating bright cherub with no traces of personal defects come spring. i schedule 5 workout classes back-to-back not thinking about the impending aches that lie in those tiny muscle shakes that women endure because that just means it’s working so well. i think of how i am going to eat so clean and tell myself it’s to optimize brain health and hormones and then question if i would rather look healthy or actually be healthy. i go to the gargantuan crate and barrel store in flatiron and buy expensive flatware and pillows while artificial pumpkin spice aromas swirl around me because that’s what adults do, which is what i am now because i have a new cardigan. i answer a text i shouldn’t because the air feels different so maybe this will be too. i get a manicure and choose big apple red by essie, the color that is synonymous with powerful women everywhere who Have It Together (also synonymous to boys who have mommy issues). i start writing this at 10:46pm promptly after i wrote “no screens after 10” in my little red notebook.

i find it kind of romantic that the signs of fall evoke the familiarity of school even in my post-academic life. at the conclusion of namaste in my yoga class all the students say “thank youuuuuu” in unison and i flash back to when i was in second grade and we all said “thank youuuu mrs. churchman” at 2:35pm on the dot every day. i go around the corner of my yoga studio to kijitora in williamsburg to treat myself to their extremely expensive strawberry matcha and instantly feel like my middle school self going to starbucks after school to get a grande mocha frappuccino with whipped cream. i make plans to see sydney play in her recreational soccer league and tell her i’ll bring orange slices and mini gatorades, the kind that would always be waiting for me at the sidelines when i was 9 wearing new pink cleats. anne texts angelina and i that her september issue of new york magazine came with a poster of usher just like the J-14 magazines we would pour over in our bedrooms at sleepovers. i scroll on substack after work like i used to scroll on tumblr after school. my mom receives a copy of the j.crew catalog in the mail for the first time since my siblings and i have been out of the house and texts us to reminisce on our back-to-school shopping trips at the kind of prussia mall. i walk through washington square park on my way to work and pass a nyu student taking a selfie of herself with a note that says, “first day of college!” i stop and ask if she wants me to take a photo she replies “YES! it’s for my mom” i smile then she asks, “do you go to nyu?” (the glycolic acid peel must be working) i laugh and say, “no babe i’m going to work, good luck though you’re going to have so much fun.” i leave to go lead a redundant weekly meeting and she leaves to start her last first day of college. i order the book my book club is reading this month, knowing i’ll annotate with a pink pen as i did in my english classes. i email my french teacher asking if enrollment started for level 2 yet. should i start playing tennis?

i understand that talking about the shift of seasons can be boring, but it always feels significant to my friends and i. maybe it’s our optimistic exuberance that bonds us together, maybe it’s a side effect of being in our twenties when everything feels exhilaratingly unsteady, our entire lives are at the heels of change at the first sign of a new season or the introduction of a stranger. it’s an odd feeling to live a life that doesn’t ebb and flow with the seasons as it did in school where i would always be pushing myself to the very brink at all times knowing a break was around the corner and this class that i was in was temporary for a semester. now my entire life is that same semester and i’m still pushing myself to the brink.

my depop offer was just accepted and my cardigan will be arriving between september 12th-15th. i’m not sure if i can wait that long.

THANK YOU FOR READING!!!!!!!!! this sounded a bit manic, i am aware, but i am not manic i promise! i wrote this almost as an exercise of auto-fiction and i really enjoyed the process. i’m having a lot of fun and am actually not that stressed at the moment and i am busy but in a good way and everything feels beautiful.

for my paying subscribers, dear angel cake actually WILL be coming back this week i promise!

please let me know your thoughts, as always! i appreciate you!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo