Weird Autumn

written by Riley miles

photographed by mckenna smith

We are now in the midst of autumn, and in my opinion, it couldn’t feel less like it. Instead of the changing leaves and the chill in the air bringing me the comfort and coziness it once did, it’s a reminder that time is continuing to march on. Each browning leaf that falls serves as a reminder that my time as a college student is almost up, and only the unknown stands before me. It’s not a hot take that change is scary, and I am sure I’m not alone in this feeling. The 2017 video game, Night in the Woods, not only reaffirms this philosophy through the protagonist Mae Borowski’s character, but also offers solace on how to confront the fear of life’s next step.

Night in the Woods is a video game that delves into various topics, including mental health, secret cults, and the systemic and economic hardships faced by a small mining town. However, for the sake of this piece, I will focus on only one theme: the theme of moving forward. Mae explores what would happen if someone cut their life short in order to return to the comfort of their adolescence. We begin the game on a crisp autumn night, just as Mae is getting off the bus. She is returning to her hometown, Possum Springs, just after dropping out of college. Her parents forgot to pick her up, so she takes the long way home through the woods, reminiscing about the trees she used to climb and passing by abandoned infrastructure she had once played in and explored during her youth.

Over the next few in-game days, Mae runs around Possum Springs, interacting with past neighbors, hanging out with old friends such as Gregg and Bea, and dwelling on all her life used to be. This is all in an attempt to chase down the nostalgia of a simpler time, when the uncertainty of adulthood wasn’t looming over her. She soon realizes that her small town was not as standstill as she thought. Her favorite restaurant has closed, all of her friends have lives and jobs that will soon lead some of them out of Possum Springs, and the town as a whole has outgrown what Mae initially expected of it. She stays stuck at home, living with her parents, with absolutely no direction on what to do next. Suddenly, any factor of nostalgia had dissipated for Mae. Possum Springs was now another place where she was expected to grow and change along with it.

Surely, Mae’s dilemma is not an uncommon one among college students. Even returning home for Thanksgiving break can result in this almost melancholic nostalgia for what adolescence was. Suddenly, all of the hardships of your youth fade to the background, for only the good times are remembered. What if you never returned back to school from Thanksgiving break? What if you just stayed snuggled up at your parents’ house, in your own bed, faced only with the responsibilities of the child you once were? It’s an enticing thought to flirt with.

Though, as we see with Mae, your old life is not yours for the taking. And you know what? That’s okay. It’s been said time and time again, and I’m going to say it once more: Change is the only constant you will face in your life. Nothing will ever be how it was forever—which can be a daunting and scary fact to grapple with, I know. But how many times has it felt like we would never get through something? Like a shift in our life was far too much to handle? Yet we did it anyway, and were a happier and better person because of it. If we spend our lives chasing old memories, we’ll be too busy to create any new ones. Nostalgia is an emotion that unveils itself sparsely, only after we’ve grown enough to make it mean something in the first place. It is a privilege we receive every so often to look back at how far we and the environment we once knew have come.

So yeah, we are now in the midst of autumn, and in my opinion, it couldn’t feel less like it. But maybe that doesn’t have to be such a terrible thing. This can be just a new type of autumn. An autumn of transitions and growth and new experiences that only my 20s can bring. An autumn where each tug of nostalgia isn’t a beckon to regress into who I once was, but a chance to look back fondly as I progress in my life. And, I have the years in my future to look forward to, when I remember this un-autumnal autumn with only the good parts and feel that same nostalgic feeling all over again.