That Time of Year Already?

This morning when I went out to my car, it felt like fall. Brisk. No humidity. I anticipate more summer before it's really fall, but I have to say I am ready. This summer has been too hot, and too full of test-taking. So a new season is in order for me.

I really love the Fall. It's always a strangely nostalgic time for me. The brisk mornings remind me of going out to my first car and driving to high school, picking up a couple friends on the way, so we could begin our day of bitching about high school jerks as early as possible. Autumn evenings remind me of sitting in my room for hours on the phone with Sarah or Jamie in high school, and of that time in my life when emotions were never more amplified; elation, tragedy, melodrama. Looking back, much of it was absurd, but it's far enough away now that I have developed some affection for those days of emotion-squared. Just as I am writing this, the forces of nostalgia envelope me further as the girl working a few doors down from me has put on Jewel's "Pieces of You." Christ, Jewel was even more melodramatic than we were!

The end of August also always makes me miss college- flying back to L.A. to catch up with those people I hadn't seen all summer. Each time a new school year started promised new adventures in political idealism, plenty of late night revelations while smoking, and a good many party pictures that, as the weeks went on, became indistinguishable from the pictures the Saturday before.

I guess it makes sense that Fall always makes me look back. It's a season of new beginnings (at least for students) and of endings (the end of the summer, the end of green, the end of long days with seemingly endless sunshine).

With just one cool morning getting all these thoughts brewing in me, I have a feeling this Fall is going to be even more nostalgic for me than most--so many things are changing in my life right now, and while they are exciting, it's also scary. The unknown can make looking back comfortable and comforting. I think I'm lucky because a lot of those people that were in my life during those times I get nostalgic about are still part of my life now, and that familiarity makes these big changes a little less scary and a little less likely to make me revert to the melodrama of high school. So, in spite of myself, even though Jewel might still write music and put out lame CDs, I don't buy them anymore, even when crisp mornings make me feel nostalgic.