It smells like fall tonight.
Fall has meant a lot of things to me, but it's mostly one of my strong scent-memory connections.
I smell the fall air when I'm having a cigarette, and immediately all the emotions I used to feel on the brink of a new semester hit me. I was incredibly anxious, but the weather during the fall months always made me feel inexplicably happy...so, while my anxiety was heavy, I was so much more social, vocal, even free. These days, it equally makes me miss things. I can never adequately explain the effect this time of year has on me. I feel the cool air, and smell those inexplicably fall smells, and it's like I'm transformed. It's just more bittersweet now, because the transformation feels incomplete without all those people around me and all the beautiful late nights. I feel an incomplete happiness and an incomplete peace.
It still just feels so odd, and it's so strong and pervasive.
I still have friends. It's just different from being a member of a relatively large, relatively definite group. Maybe that's part of it. I'm trying to sort through my explanations to find the most accurate one. This one seems to fit. I miss the group, with all the various characters, like a complete sitcom cast.
This is normal. People grow and move -- on, up, over, elsewhere. I have. I've just always had trouble letting go of established things, comfortable things...and while I have progressed, I've also been a more stagnant one, emotionally. All I've ever really invested in were social groups and friendships, but I've still always inadvertently [and unfortunately] kept a bit of distance. I've become a lot more forthright and candid, but sometimes I get that way randomly and abruptly, I think because I socialize so rarely these days. I think it makes people uncomfortable a lot of the time. It's always been a struggle for me to find a balance between extreme distance and extreme closeness. Before college, it was pretty much always distance for me. I could have used more practice with the other end of the spectrum back then.
Again, I've rambled. Sometimes it's easier for me to sort out these thoughts when I do this.
I smell the fall air when I'm having a cigarette, and immediately all the emotions I used to feel on the brink of a new semester hit me. I was incredibly anxious, but the weather during the fall months always made me feel inexplicably happy...so, while my anxiety was heavy, I was so much more social, vocal, even free. These days, it equally makes me miss things. I can never adequately explain the effect this time of year has on me. I feel the cool air, and smell those inexplicably fall smells, and it's like I'm transformed. It's just more bittersweet now, because the transformation feels incomplete without all those people around me and all the beautiful late nights. I feel an incomplete happiness and an incomplete peace.
It still just feels so odd, and it's so strong and pervasive.
I still have friends. It's just different from being a member of a relatively large, relatively definite group. Maybe that's part of it. I'm trying to sort through my explanations to find the most accurate one. This one seems to fit. I miss the group, with all the various characters, like a complete sitcom cast.
This is normal. People grow and move -- on, up, over, elsewhere. I have. I've just always had trouble letting go of established things, comfortable things...and while I have progressed, I've also been a more stagnant one, emotionally. All I've ever really invested in were social groups and friendships, but I've still always inadvertently [and unfortunately] kept a bit of distance. I've become a lot more forthright and candid, but sometimes I get that way randomly and abruptly, I think because I socialize so rarely these days. I think it makes people uncomfortable a lot of the time. It's always been a struggle for me to find a balance between extreme distance and extreme closeness. Before college, it was pretty much always distance for me. I could have used more practice with the other end of the spectrum back then.
Again, I've rambled. Sometimes it's easier for me to sort out these thoughts when I do this.