I have been waiting for fall and now it’s here. The trees that line people’s gardens are orange and red, I’m taking out my scarves and hats from somewhere deep in my closet, and on the weekends I bake maple cookies and carrot cupcakes. I couldn’t sense the change, but now I smell the crisp air and feel the comforting warmth of my winter coat as I slip my arms into it.
In irony of the season, the air has been strangely calm for this time of year, and I feel that I have finally settled into my life back at home. I know when the traffic will be bad and when it won’t, just how long I can snooze the alarm in the morning, that I’ll find my water bottles again when I lose them, and that I’m not a bad person even if I don’t wash the plastic yoghurt cup when I throw it away. It’s all burned in Sweden anyway. Yet, I know I am not the same as I was before. I listen to the same albums I used to listen to on the bus on the way to school. But the books I read are different. Once a month or so I look into the mirror and realise I am more like my mother than I was a few weeks ago.
Sometimes the repetitive nature of my daily life causes boredom to settle into it. But it feels just a bit good to be bored. I can allow myself to forget, just for a moment, an hour, a day or two, that I really shouldn’t be. This break won’t last forever and there are still things and work that need to be gotten done. I remember it every once in a while. In the meantime, I live in quiet, blissful ignorance of time beyond the next few weeks. For now, it is fall, and I am just ever so different than before.
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