even the stars hideaway

As I sit in my favorite alcove in the Starbucks above B&N, I watch as red leaves swirl majestically to the ground dancing on their way to land, rather crunchily on the ground.  The yellow and orange leaves still holding firmly to the branches of the tree,  reluctant to leave (pun!) their home.  But everything changes and tomorrow when I come back a gust of wind will have had its way.

Beyond the smiles and laughter. Beyond the air of self confidence and happiness. There is me:  A hint of perfume in the night, spoonfuls of peanut butter, driving to contain myself, driving to lose myself, dancing without abandon because sometimes it feels so good to just let everything go. I am not invincible. Within me there is doubt all of the time. Solitude is preferred. You can't take more than two hot showers in a day to stop the madness; that isn't acceptable. I think too much; I talk too much; I talk too much about what I think. I'm not always proud of myself.

I have always been a middle person. Clinging to those at the top but always falling solidly somewhere in the middle. Nothing spectacularly amazing or destructive will ever come of me. I work hard; I work really hard and I've always ended right up in the middle.

So this is me screaming at the top of my lungs. I am not okay.
I'm not fine.
I'm not right. 
I want to be rain that tastes like wine.

It is a different world, a world where leaves change colors and it gets cold before December; a world where, despite how much I want to believe it, I just don't quite fit in, but then again I certainly didn't fit in Mississippi. Its a world where people don't know that there is a difference between an Oxford and a button down and frankly don't care and, perhaps, I never did either. Although I was born and raised in the South, I never considered myself a southerner, always falling back on the 'my parents aren't actually from here...' line and now living in the North, I find that i don't quite identify with the social norms presented.

Change, however, may be a good thing; a lot of Southern traditions are stuck obstinately in the past; and a lot of Northern traditions refuse to acknowledge there even was a past. Stuck between both worlds gives me perspective; a transition, much like that of the fall leaves.  Some trees choose to keep their leaves green all year long, keeping them close, refusing to let go; to allow for new growth. I've already begun to change colors.

Something scientific having to do with leaf hormones. That is why the leaves change colors. They fall to the ground, turn brown and make terrific crunching sounds.  Perhaps they are there to remind us that right before winter there is beauty and warmth. Or perhaps they, like the rest of us, simply can't survive in frigid temperatures and must do what is necessary to survive.

Because in the spring there will be the promise of new life, green buds shooting up. To give us all something to be proud of.  Even the late bloomers, eventually bloom.