Something about today just looks like fall. It’s not the hurricane aftermath, the wet roads, the gray skies…it’s something else. As I just walked around in my Google fleece (which is omnipresent due to the sub-zero temperatures they apparently believe are necessary for a productive office) I caught that scent of fall. I’m ready.

I’ve had my last “hurrah” of the summer.

But what a summer it was…truly. Though I can’t believe it’s gone (or going) already, my walls are lined with fun memories, my arms still tanned from the warm sun. (Oh, and Aruba. That counts too.) And yet as I was unpacking last night, putting my suitcase back into my closet, I realized that the summer of ’04, with all its Braves games and birthdays and days by the pool (ok, so there weren’t that many of those) is about to be packed away as well. My flip flops soon to be replaced by substantial shoes, my sundresses making way for long pants. It’s a changing of the guards, closet style. And it makes me a bit melancholy. It’s probably the result of all the changes as of late…my work, my life, my likes…but the Aubrey of Fall seems a very different person than the Aubrey of Summer. And I don’t know how I feel about that.

Change requires moving on, learning to let go, taking stock of where you are, what you have, what’s still ‘fashionable’ for the days and months ahead and what you can part with. I’ve never been very good at this, both in cleaning out my closet and in life. I look at my old favorites, the white shirts with just a small stain on them, and remember how cute they look with that Hawaiian skirt that’s just a wee bit too tight these days, and then I can’t bear to get rid of them. They’re familiar to me, they’re comfortable, they’re what I’m used to. And yet if I keep them, I don’t make room for anything new. And that’s where I remain, stuck between the familiar and the uncertain, an age-old quandary of life and love and growing up and moving on.

Because as the seasons change, and as life does, what once was familiar becomes something in the past, and it’s up to you to decide if your favorite sweatshirt will remain in your top drawer, or be stored away in the attic, making room for something new.

And that, I just don’t know.