Being away from school becomes the hardest after the first month. The excitement has worn away, the work is piling up, and summer officially ends. As much as everyone can say they love fall, the season we had all grown to love doesn't exist in the same way anymore. The seasons are defined by the experiences within them. Being away, lots of those experiences won't be had. The shift from solstice to equinox is the real shift, in a way, of thinking about the new lives being led away from home. You're begin to settle into a routine, but its easy to begin to miss the old one you used to have.

Most of all, the fall season holds so many traditions. When home town fairs and dances used to take place, there is an absence of certainty. Where there used to be big family parties, there's living with a campus of practical strangers. There isn't family apple and pumpkin picking. Who are you supposed to check your fall bucket list off with? Completing all the dorky things we want to do in fall is honestly an intimate thing. It would be lucky to have made friends that will take silly pictures with you by the time fall rolls around.

I missed my hometown's annual fair for the first time in 14 years. It really isn't much of a loss, the best part is the food. But it still brings a lot of old memories of old friends. This marked the shift of the seasons for the sleepy town, and I won't be there like I always have. I won't see the leaves change on the same trees I've always loved. I won't be working a booth, or eating my way down the main street this weekend. I won't have the crisp mornings of my old country town, or have my mom to make me cocoa at night.

However, this fall I'll do new things. Instead of the fair I have the Homecoming football game, a totally new experience for me. My high school wasn't necessarily known for football, and we never had homecoming. I'm seeing the leaves of new trees start to change color, and seeing the soft morning fog over different ponds. I'll be closer to the ocean, which is something I've never objected, as it starts to get colder. I'm visiting a different city, in a different state, but a new zip code can't change my love for cities in the fall. I'm visiting new restaurants and new museums. I even went to WaterFire, something I've always wanted to do - a right of passage of sorts for a Rhode Islander, even the new ones.

I'll miss out on a lot of the traditions and experiences that made me love fall. But as the seasons change, so will I. I'll make new friends, and find new experiences to have. We'll be making our own traditions. Maybe the WaterFire visit will be an annual outing. And if I'm really lucky, I'll be able to mix the old with the new. As the seasons change, so will I, but these new experiences could never devalue the old.