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It was a weird weekend, two days of endings and a strange melancholy.

Autumn came this weekend, with brisk winds, jackets over summer clothes and cold feet, firmly shoving summer into the past. Still, I refuse to wear socks and took refuge in my fiesta shawl, wrapping my legs in handknit comfort, blocking the gale sneaking its way under my front door from the hallway vent. Cupping my hands around a mug of something hot, I sat by my window, looking out on the transition clouds, still the fluffy white of summer, but tinged with a heavier grey, promising rain and wind and the stripping bare of trees.

Outside, the wind has a new bite and flocks of pigeons gather, puffing up and hunkering down on the grass dotted with leaves. The construction is finished and my neighbourhood has beautiful new sidewalks, black, bouncy asphalt and bright white stripes has been painted for crosswalks. Wandering down the street, my hair blowing in front of my eyes, moving from patches of sunlight through lengthening shadows, you can feel the ticking of summer’ s clock coming to an end.

Big Brother, too, is ending – it’s all over but the voting and I prepared to say goodbye to a glorious summer obsession, the most compelling of them all, the most controversial and divisive of them all. For the first time, I’m going to miss some of these people in my television, wonder how they are, what they’re doing, if they’re happy. It’s September and tomorrow’s last episode will be official notification that it’s time to get back to work, that it’s time to get something done again.

For days now, I’ve had an urge to go to Staples, to buy pens and paper, highlighters, file folders and organizational doodads and this urge, more than any other emotion or event, is a sign that summer is almost done. 27 years of starting over in the ninth month have had an impact and I feel ill prepared for the new year without a pile of supplies bolstering my plans.

There are no endings without beginnings, but I am not ready to let go.