My Dear September,

I think I'm falling in love with you.

I know this might sound strange. People generally fall for January. Which may explain the gargantuan hotel prices and the outright fascination with everything red: wine, cakes, flowers, and everything in between.

January comes in with a blast.

Fireworks. Parades. Resolutions. Mighty feasts. A whole world collectively deciding that midnight is a good enough reason to start over.

I used to understand the fascination. There is something romantic about new beginnings. A new calendar. A clean page. Twelve months of possibility sitting patiently in front of you, waiting to be undone by February, that infamous month of breakups and breakdowns, of Valentines and Christmases that didn't last.

But if I'm being honest, January has lost its charm on me. I haven't felt that way this year. I haven't felt that way for quite a few years now.

Perhaps I was simply waiting for September. Because this September feels a lot like March. She acts like summer and walks like rain. Reminds me that there's a time to change. And smells like a warm brew of blueberry coffee, kissed by petrichor and a fading sun.

Tell me, my dear September. Did you know what you were doing when you walked into my life? Did you know you were going to make me feel at home? Did you know that somewhere in the middle of an ordinary week, I would look at you and begin wondering what the rest of my life might look like?

That is the funny thing about you, my dear September. You never announced your arrival. No trumpets. No violins. No chandeliers. And yet they all keep playing in my mind whenever I think of you. I have been thinking about you all the time. My background music has taken on the quiet, eloquent harmonies of Yanni and Yiruma.

Tell me, my dear September. How is it that talking to you comes easier than putting words to paper? How is it that an introverted writer, at a loss for words after thirty-odd years of collecting them, suddenly finds himself something of an orator? What magic do you carry in your smile, and what spell do you cast in your laugh? And why, when you laugh, does some part of me feel like it has been waiting for that sound far longer than it has known you?

Tell me, my dear September. Is it strange that something this good makes me nervous? I have spent years keeping my calendar carefully unremarkable, so nothing could disappoint me twice. And then you arrived, out of the blue, and made me want to circle dates again. Is that foolish, or is that simply what it means to hope?

Tell me, my dear September. Did the others feel like this too, or is it only me that makes you feel like this too? Did I simply notice more, or did no one before have a reason to? I have been handed Decembers that overstayed their welcome and Julys that never meant it. So tell me, what did you do differently that even makes my silences feel less lonely now?

Tell me, my dear September. Do you know that months are supposed to end? That is the arrangement, the one thing every calendar promises. And yet I catch myself hoping you're the exception. The one month that simply stays, long after the date changes on the pages.

I suppose that makes you my New Year. Not because you arrived with some half-baked promise, but because you arrived and made a believer of me. That feels like a better beginning. A quieter one. One without fireworks. One with the possibility of waltzing in the rain with you.

So. My dear September. I think I'll stop waiting for January.

Let everyone else have their midnight kisses, their champagne, their resolutions. I have something better. I have this week, this month, this time, to cherish and celebrate. I have the terrifying joy of knowing that somewhere between the start of this month and the end of this year, I may have found the muse I want beside me for all the years that come after.

And perhaps that is what I will remember about you, my dear September. Not the weather, not the dates, not where the month began or where it ends. I will remember your sweet eyes, which made ordinary days feel extraordinary. Your laugh, which found its way into the quieter corners of my mind. Your hand, that I want to hold when the years are no longer measured in months. And if anyone ever asks me when my year truly begins, I think I'll smile and say September. Because while theirs may begin with a countdown on a calendar, mine arrived the moment you smiled.

Perhaps that's why, my dear September, I don't think I'll ever celebrate January the same way again.