Let's talk about the weather...

It's that time of year again. The time when summer ends--ack! I've found my dread of winter has become so strong that it has even begun to threaten my love of fall. I find myself getting excited and then wincing at the thought of what comes after. I guess it's unfair to blame fall. After all, it can't help the fact that the impending doom of winter follows so closely. I shouldn't hold it against it. The mountains, on the other hand, embrace fall each year like an undying fashion. Donning yellow, orange, and red like they were made for those colors (they really were, weren't they). Cool breeze. Plaid. Hot cider. Camp fires. It's hard not to do the same.

We usually have at least another month and a half of heat before the leaves will start their change, but already the wind has picked up and the air has begun to cool. I smelt fall the other night. Aaron shook his head, letting me know we had a little ways to go. But nostalgia doesn't seem to care what the calender says and has set in once again. I find I have a love-hate relationship with nostalgia. It makes me smile and daydream, and then it hits me in my gut, reminding me those memories are just that. Memories. Never to be again.

Most of my fall memories are still quite fresh. There really isn't such a thing as fall in southern China. Just summer, and then BAM! Wet, damp, winter. And then BAM! Summer again. So most of my fall memories (besides a few scattered through my childhood when on furlough) are just from the last six years. I started my new life at college in the fall. I met Aaron in the fall. I discovered my love of writing in the fall. I became pregnant with Aiden in the fall. My brother survived a deadly disease in the fall. Fall is magical. Life changing. It holds memories impossible to forget. It gets you thinking, what will happen this fall?

Ah, who am I kidding. Not even the throes of winter could threaten my love of fall!