Fall is my favorite season hands down. My next favorite is winter (skiing), then spring and summer. Most people aren’t very enthusiastic about fall. I get it—running around in flip-flops and shorts is a lot more fun then pulling on a parka and praying you don’t succumb to frostbite. Fall is also the start of school, which means everything becomes a lot less relaxed.

As always, I tend to go against the status quo. First off, I detest hot and humid. I’m not sure when I became so sensitive to heat and humidity, but during the summer, I won’t even go outside after nine in the morning or seven in the evening. Part of the reason is because my eyes are very sensitive to the sun. Migraines are a guarantee if I don’t wear sunglasses when I’m in sunlight. Things go from bad to worse if I’m in the sun without sunglasses and it’s hot. I wouldn’t even mind just wearing sunglasses in the sun, providing I’m not hot. God help me if I took Bikram yoga, I would leave on a stretcher.

Even though my life didn’t go exactly as I planned, fall is still my favorite time of year. Nothing helps me reboot like the crunch of leaves as I walk, the grey November sky and the first hint of smoke from a fireplace in autumn awakening after a long summer snooze.

I've often wondered why I love fall so much; I believe it has to do with my childhood. Looking back, I remember some of the happiest times of my life were galloping my pony through the leaves in the autumn. It was just the two of us. A slight smell of smoke hung in the air, along with mashed apples and rotting leaves. The temperature was perfect. It was still warm enough to be outside without a jacket, but the humidity had broken and it was just a tad brisk. After my ride, my mother would pick me up from the barn and I would go home to eat dinner with my family. This was right before I learned my mother had breast cancer, so all the chaos that resulted from her diagnosis, had yet to affect me. Even though my life didn’t go exactly as I planned, I can still find happiness in the fall. Probably because the smell of autumn leaves brings me back to a simpler time.