I love Fall.
Almost nothing makes me more excited than when the weather starts to get chilly enough for jeans, sweaters, boots, and pumpkin everything.
Why then do I feel so incredulous that the air in Delft has begun to bite in the mornings and evenings?
I looked at John yesterday and exclaimed, “It’s just too soon! We didn’t get a summer, did we?”
An interesting part of living an entire year in another part of the world is getting to witness the differences in weather as Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall each yield to each other.
In the Netherlands, a season that in Colorado would consist of multiple months of 85 to 95 degree days, is instead made up of multiple months of 70 to 80 degree days.
I will say, both this year and last, we did have a heat wave in The Netherlands… about 7 days in a row that hit well above 90.
The beaches were crowded…a two-hour traffic jam to reach them! Kids and adults alike swam in the canals for a small respite. My neighbor put out an inflatable swimming pool on his terrace, and John turned our giant bathtub into a haven for multiple cool dips throughout the workday.
In a country that’s used to Summer average highs of around 71, the infrastructure for heat in the high 90s is non-existent. Very few places have air conditioning, including our apartment, and at the end of the week our living space remained at about 90 degrees well into the night. It was rough.
But here’s the thing…that heat was for one week…
Here and there we’ve had days in the high 70s and low 80s…but for the most part, my jeans have gotten more wear than my dresses.
And now we are quickly headed towards rain…and darkness…and a bite in the air that I know will pair with the humidity to chill us to the bone.
Fall is here, and I’ve never resisted it so much in my life.
I am not a warm-weather girl…but it turns out it’s hard to look forward to the cold when you don’t have a long enough run-in with the heat.
Really, I suppose life is full of examples like this…because perspective is important.
Without hardship, how can we be grateful when we experience ease? Without sorrow, how can we recognize true joy? Without loneliness, how can we rejoice fully in companionship?
So next year, no matter where I am in the world, I promise to remind myself that if I let it, the warmth of the heat wave will serve to increase my gratefulness for the cold.
And when I face trials, I will continue to remind myself of the true joy that is found in enduring them.
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4
