The fall is here, and so is nostalgia. But why? This is something I catch myself thinking about and feeling all the time. There is something so bittersweet about fall. It is a season of changes, as leaves shift their color palette before slowly falling. The season is all about endings - the end of summer, of warm weather, of days at the beach and lazy Sunday picnics. But it is also so beautiful that it is impossible to lament the end of summer. 

While the maples and oaks are ablaze with color, there is something oddly intimate about autumn. Maybe in the way that we swaddle ourselves with warm woolen sweaters and break out the boots and scarves. Maybe it is something about the pumpkin spice lattes and salted caramel pretzels, the bitter taste of espresso along with the sweet spices and rich chocolates, something about having cold hands and warm liquid, about steam rising up into the night. There is something about the first morning when your breath puffs out in a little cloud. 

Fall is the season of choices, of determining which way a life will go. It’s a season of excitement and growth—students heading back to class, college football season, television premieres, the start of really great movies, etc. It’s putting away the fun beach reads and remembering all the nuance of the great literary artists we read about in our English classes. 

It’s a season of childhood memories—at least for those of us raised in America’s heartland. It’s corn mazes and walks through the woods. It’s apple orchards, pumpkin patches, hayrides, cider and homemade cinnamon sugar donuts. It’s haunted houses and trick-or-treating, turkeys and cranberries, and pumpkin pie. It’s comfort food and comfortable places; it’s hot tea to cure the common cold sitting beside a fire.  

It is a season of waiting for the next step, the next stage. It is waiting for college acceptance letters, for that special someone to ask you to high school homecoming, for the first snowfall, for the holiday season. Fall is waiting for the weather to get just cold enough;, it is waiting for Christmas and then waiting for spring. 

Right now, for me, it is waiting to hear back from my study abroad program, from internships and for my next trip home to escape the craziness of midterms and junior year stress.  Over the past few weeks, just like every fall, I tend to look over the last year in my life and figure out what I have done to grow as a person, and how I have become a contributing member to society.

I have learned that getting the average grade on high school tests really wasn’t the end of the world and the same goes for college. I have noticed that not everyone has learned time management skills before they enter college but it is something everyone can always improve upon. Things are not always in my control and I just have to go with the flow and see what happens. 

I have been trying to understand more about politics and formulate an opinion on what should happen in the next four years. I have learned that a smile and a compliment goes a long way to brighten someone’s day.  

Even so, nostalgia is a close relative to sadness, and all of these things about fall are also the things that make some people feel sad. Cold - both in temperature and light - really heightens the feeling of loss.  It could just be  that fall makes us feel nostalgic, but that other seasons don’t. Spring is the true season for new beginnings and hope, and summer is so bright, verdant, and warm. When things are like that, it can be hard to miss another time and place.  

Fall brings about a beautiful feeling, along with a terrifying one. It is a photo album of people you don’t see anymore. It is leaving behind what is comfortable and moving forward. Fall is wanting to stay in the past but being so, so excited for what lies ahead.