feeling fall

I noticed it yesterday morning as I walked to the gym and the goosebumps formed on my arms, fall is knocking on Mother nature’s door ready to walk in. As much as I countdown to summer, summer feels heavy with expectations for everything that I have to do and there’s always a sense that summer is rushed as I check off my summer bucket lists, like visiting friends, getting the perfect tan while avoiding too much sun damage, and eating enough watermelon to the point where I feel like I will burst.
Fall comes in slowly and doesn’t do anything loudly to make its presence known it just begins to seep in until it subtly makes its appearance known, through the leaves starting to lose their colors and the satisfying crunch of an acorn when you step on it. Maybe it is because fall has always signified the start of school, but fall unlike any other season has felt like the start of something new. As the colorful leaves coat the ground creating a beautiful carpet it feels like change is inevitable.
This is the first time that fall hasn’t signified the start of a new school year, but it still feels like the beginning of something. There aren’t any physical indicators like Ticonderoga number 2 pencils and the heavy textbooks to signify the beginning, but this is the beginning of something nonetheless: my first lease, my own health insurance, being held accountable and not by grades, but the quality of my work. As obvious as it should seem, it didn’t occur to me that this is the beginning of being responsible for myself otherwise known as adulthood.
That doesn’t mean I don’t call my parents when I have a question or I look on YouTube to see how to reset my internet router, I do and all the time, but for the first time my life is not marked by an academic calendar and my performance is not measured by a letter grade. I know I am technically an “adult” but there are times when I feel like this is all acting and I will eventually go back to my old room and bed and crawl under the covers to wake up and discover this was all a dream. Fall always comes in quietly, hoping to not be noticed, until I realize as I am running out the door that I need to grab a jacket, entering the “real world” was the same way. Day by day I took small steps, whether it was cutting a watermelon for the first time or assembling my nightstand until all those small steps added up to being an adult. In my mind, fall has always signified the start of school, but this fall was a bit more special than most and makes me wonder what will all the falls after stand as beginnings for?