Melon calling and Milahd

I was sitting in my parents’ yard today and as I looked around, I realized that today is the unofficial official last day of summer. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the end of summer so acutely – the past five years have been filled with work, so a summer day was just like a winter day, only hotter. I went to the office and I came home. Sure, I went on trips with the kids and did things outside, but the time flew by and it was mostly a series of “just another days.”

Obviously this summer was different. I went places with the kids. I hung out with my friends. I went to the pool at my complex for the first time ever, and I’ve lived here for three summers. I’ve loved every minute of my freedom from my job – I can’t tell you enough how thankful I am that that place is no longer and that because of that, I was able to take the time off that I needed to. I got to have summer and I LOVED it!

Fall is one of my favorite seasons. I love the change in the air – the nights are much chillier and even though we ate dinner outside at Sally and Joe’s last night, we had a fire going in the chiminea and sweatshirts on. It was beautiful out, and when I went to bed, I took my hair out of a ponytail, and it smelled like fire smoke. I love that smell. I love the smell of the crisp air, and I love the smell of fires burning in fireplaces. I love the colors of fall and I love the things that fall means. High school football games, carving pumpkins, a fire in my fireplace. I love that even though fall is an end for so many things, it’s always been a beginning for me.

I’ve started my last few jobs in the fall. Five years ago in October, I began my job at my now-defunct company. The fall before that I started working at REI. And now, tomorrow I start yet another new job. It’s exciting. It’s the promise that things will change and even though I fear change, I also love it. New people, a new place, new stuff to learn and do.

I’ve also began a lot of my relationships in the fall. My college boyfriend and I began dating in the fall and a year later, we got engaged in the fall. I started seeing my last serious boyfriend, the one I was with for four and a half years, in the fall. And two years ago, I started seeing Not Boyfriend in the fall.

So I guess it’s not weird that when fall comes around, I feel melancholy. Or “melon calling” as Kendra used to say. I was thinking about how to write about all of this, and I remembered that last year at this time, I was feeling the same way. I went back and read this entry, and the first paragraph kind of sums up how I feel right now. In the arena of melon-calling, that is. The entry ends with me keeping my fingers crossed for things to work out with Not Boyfriend, and a year later, they totally have. He’s living in another state, but we’ve stayed close friends. We talk about once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. When he comes back to Denver, he makes time to see me. I still love him, it’s just a different love now, and I no longer hold on to the hope that we’ll be together. I still miss him, but how could you not miss a friend who’s far away?

As far as the other side of the coin, well, I got that covered as well. The job is new. The routine is new. The people will be new. The stuff I learn will be new. It’s the beginning of something that might last long, but that might not. It’s what I mean by “milahd” – that’s the name of my ex-boyfriend’s little boy. In Farsi, it means “new beginning”.

So. Here’s what we’re keeping our fingers crossed about this year. That my fall will have more milahds than I could possibly know what to do with. Because my summer has surpassed all expectations, so why should fall be any different?