The New Fall

My favorite season has always been Fall. Is it because of Halloween? The changing leaves? The cooler weather? It's a question I don't know how to answer.

I've met a lot of other people who's favorite season is Fall too, which, while a good season, seems like the second least likely to be picked, only ahead of Winter.

It seems like when Fall and Spring are so similar to each other in weather, the common choice should be Spring for the weather warming and the environment coming back to life. I mean, that's what Spring is known for; being the season of rebirth and new life.

That's hard to beat. Until I realized that Fall is the Spring for the youth. Spring gets all the accolades for being the most beautiful season. When life begins again, things grow and bloom and blossom, and the weather warms up, whereas in Fall, the weather gets colder, gloomier, darker, and life fades away and dies.

But in way, for teenagers and young adults, Fall is the season of rebirth. The time of new-agains and old reappearances.

Fall ushers in the new school year, new classes, new teachers, new schedules, new friends, and reacquainting with older ones that were perhaps forgotten. With Fall comes new sports and activities to join, new goals, the chance to every year reinvent oneself and try something new.

New life always starts in the Fall every year. The Fall brings a fresh new start to life again.

But, as I stare down the end of my young life and head towards my adult life, I realize that Fall won't bring the new for me anymore. There's no more looking ahead to a season when things refresh and start over, there's no longer a specific time to find new opportunities, and you're just as likely to meet new people in the middle of Winter as you are in the Fall.

I worry that for me, Fall will just become Spring in reverse. Going from pretty to ugly, instead of ugly to pretty.

Or should I be worried that no matter what season comes along once I'm older, it won't bring the same perks the Fall once brought me? When the new no longer occurs, what is left but all same ol' same ol'?

Either way, here's to hoping the beauty and newness that Fall brings will forever remain with me.