slowly, then all at once

I felt it today. The sky hung so low and thick it was almost suffocating, and carried in wisps on the breeze, I heard her whisper. "I'm coming," she breathed, and just like that the temperature dropped and the clouds grew darker. I listened intently, feeling the wind blow on my face. When she finally comes, we gladly give up our games and carefree lives of leisure, only to realize it's January first, cold and miserable and gray, and we desperately wish summer were here again and regret the easiness with which we gave those things up. But Autumn is an unstoppable force and cannot be pleaded or bargained with.
Now the drops are falling heavy, purposefully; I propped my window open earlier and the curtains are swaying and billowing soundlessly. I want to write more about the rain, but then I come across this bit in Sylvia Plath's journal: "It is raining. I am tempted to write a poem. But I remember what it said on one rejection slip: after a heavy rainfall, poems titled RAIN pour in from across the nation." I will be content to listen instead.
It's comforting, listening to the rain through the window. I rearranged my room today and it feels so much cozier and lovely. It started with the curtains; I've been meaning to put them up since May but it was only crossed off the todo list today. While I was putting them up, I realized I couldn't stop with just the curtains--one quote from John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (which I started last night and am almost finished with) keeps running through my mind: "I fell in love with the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once." But it's applicable in many ways more than just sleep--like my curtains. First one step slowly, then everything else all at once. Autumn, too. The dog days of summer follow in slow, sticky succession and you think relief will never come, until one day there's a break in the heat and the next day it's a little cooler until suddenly fall surrounds you wherever you go. Slowly, then all at once. In some way or another, maybe that's the pattern of life.