Waiting for My Rocket to Come

It was just one of those things a fall baby knows.
The fall wind was blowing in.
I can't exactly explain it, that intangible smell traveling in whispers, a faint hint on the air, like a promise. Was it the smell of winds changing? Apples ripening? Or perhaps, as all those born in spring would boast, the smell of decay? The smell of the world slowly letting go for the final winter slumber?
To me it was a crispness, an outsideness, something unspoken and non-threatening. It was the start of something new.
Since I had always loved school as a child, Fall was something special. I preferred to measure new years in falls instead of dreary, drippy Januaries. Fall meant new clothes, new books, birthdays, Halloween. Everything that I always loved. The smell of new papers and pens. The sweet tartness of new apples. I'm sure I've written about autumn before. For me though, it was the most important season, the season I measured my life by. All the best and promising things happened in fall.
And here I was, at the precipice of another fall. Saying goodbye to summer already. Saying goodbye to endless nights and sweltering, lazy days. I was about to embark on something new. And I was so excited. Because what bad things happen in fall?
I was ready to wipe my slate. Begin the year anew, almost like resolutions. Starting over fresh and clean, with expectations of taking my life into my own hands. It seemed almost fitting that I should say goodbye to my first waitressing job as the fall weather rolled in, as if signaling my departure. I had learned a lot. About serving, about people, about myself. Was it chicken to just say goodbye to it? Maybe. But I had to go back to the place that I belonged. The world that I belonged in and made sense to me. The world where I could change something.
Fall, I could smell it and I was ready. It was when it was here that I could acknowledge it.

"And if you should nervously breakdown when it's time for the shakedown, would you take it? It's when you cry just a little but you laugh in the middle that you've made it. And don't it feel alright? And don't it feel so nice? Love, love, love, love, la la la la la lovely."

~ Tonight, Not Again by Jason Mraz