Autumn Affair 🍃

I am drinking spiced rum on a cold night to bring the warmth back into my lips as I chat with an old friend, a once upon a time almost lover, who’s company was missed more than I realized. The space is filled with chatter as coats are shrugged off, and a piano rendition of some corny pop song picks up. The crows are flocking back and forth between every powerline, making shapes in the wind as they fly through the pink sky. We share a slice of bread, ripping pieces off for each other. I place blame on the rum, but maybe the warmth I feel is love. There is so much of it here, from a young couple taking photos of each other in the booth to my right to the girls celebrating a birthday directly in front of me. It fills my lungs with every breath until I am smothered with gratitude.

On the drive home a playlist of songs I obsessed over in the previous year shuffles on the radio; markers of my time and experiences and love and grief. I feel so much the same yet so far removed. I am a Russian nesting doll, stacked full of my younger selves; it’s what makes me whole. Parallel universes of who and where I could be pass by in the rearview. Autumn always makes me contemplative.

There is something special about this moment though, a surrendering. I am who I want to be. I am where I want to be.