Fall makes me feel like at any moment it could be 2001 and we're just getting to know each other, before we became anything we needed, before I ever dropped the L bomb, before all the ups and downs, years before we slept together and ruined the whole thing.
It could be 2004 and I'm putting a name to the face I'd seen one heart-stopping time before, walking in the rain and you're saying maybe you're just a morose person, but you love the combination of autumn and rain. Writing about nerves, constantly shaking, feeling things I used to dream about. Going for solitary walks in my new neighborhood, kicking through leaves, stopping periodically to write down something terribly important, some new way you smiled or some little tidbit I learned about you (string dance for the win!).
2006, getting into my car every afternoon and feeling empty and hopeless, like we'd never see each other again, and I mean that in the best possible way. Missing you used to be amazing. Going for long drives by myself, stupidly excited by foliage. Becoming carefree and slutty and so happy with all my vices.
2007 in New York with new friends, laying out drunk in the grass even when the ground started to get cold. Wandering Manhattan every weekend, honestly believing that life could be like that indefinitely. Trying to dress like a pirate after doing shots with anyone who walked by my room, and the most ridiculous failure of a trick-or-treating attempt.
2008 Fall semester - watching Hocus Pocus, Titanic, and Girl, Interrupted on a daily-or-more basis. Impulse trips between Boston and New York, drinking bottles of wine on the Fung Wah, collecting taxi numbers and always running to catch the last train. Wandering Salem, sneaking into tour groups. Sitting at the table with our Georgians and Ukrainians, chain smoking and drinking stolen whiskey out of water bottles. Dancing and singing through fields at night, playing in the rain and mud during the blackout, accidental angel dust and discovering Ketto. Almost kissing you on Halloween - trying to figure what ended up all over my face (it was your face paint, not very discreet of us), kissing you in your room with you disappointed, disheartened, telling me we were going to hell. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, but you said so sadly, "There is no salvation." and kissed me in that life altering way that you used to kiss me.
2009, just getting to know TL, holding hands when no one was looking, talking on the phone till we fell asleep. The four of us having so much fun every night. Getting high and downing bottles of rum, watching movies and laughing nonstop. Halloween parties we couldn't recover from (beer in the couch cushions?), the Oktoberfest that wouldn't end, getting held hostage by campus safety for 10 hours while dressed like a Viking.
It makes me panic that this time could go by without getting the chance to feel all those things again, that it could just slip away before I've had the chance to take it all in. Even worse is the worry that it could slip away before I can make new memories. I haven't had a memorable fall in years - nothing to write about, nothing worth a moment of nostalgia. We're going to Salem this weekend and I'm hoping I can find something worth missing.