Winter 

Last time I went home, it was still fall. The outside temperature was warm but not so warm that I would consider it hot. Neighborhood kids were still playing outdoors, sometimes in their own front yards and other times in other people’s yards. 

When I was eight, my neighbor and I trespassed into the lawn of the old woman who lived across the street. There were no gates around the perimeter of her yard, so to us, it wasn’t trespassing. We liked to take turns jumping over the creek that ran through her yard. The water was shallow, so there was no reason to be afraid if we fell in. Eventually, the old woman emerged from her front door and scolded us for being on her lawn. After that, we stopped going to her yard to jump over the creek. I never told my parents because I was scared of being scolded by them too. 

When I went back home in the winter, it was colder than what winters used to be like. It was also raining. I drove through the neighborhood I used to live in, and the creek was frozen over. The house the old woman lived in didn’t look like her house anymore: there was a Yamaha boat sitting in the driveway, alongside a black sedan. These were new additions to the house, and the woman who yelled at me when I was eight was, indeed, very old. 

I later met with my high school friend who I hadn’t seen since the fall. We went to dinner at the only Mexican restaurant in our hometown, where people would swarm after football games on Friday nights. The night we went to the restaurant was not a Friday, but I recognized most of the faces there from my high school. We talked inside for about an hour. A lot of people we knew who used to be friends were no longer friends. Afterwards, we talked for another hour in the parking lot. Her cousin dropped out to take over his dad’s sandwich business. Her family thinks he dropped out because of his girlfriend. 

At the end of the night, we said goodbye and promised to make plans to see each other again soon. Heavy rain fell against her car and from the inside, the only thing I could see outside was light from headlights in the parking lot. I felt like I was reading from a script, but I wasn’t too concerned about that. What concerned me more was that I didn’t care about feeling that way. 

When I returned to the lobby of the hotel I was staying at, there was no one at the front desk. The next morning, the storm clouds that had purged the night before loitered in the sky. I started the car, waited for the heat, and hoped it wouldn’t storm on my drive back. Despite wishing for home so many times since the fall, it didn’t feel like home anymore. 

Spring

My birth month is in the spring and, completely uncorrelated, I was born with severe seasonal allergies. Preemptively, I brought several stiff pillows with me to college because I knew I would have trouble sleeping when congested. The volume of my pillows was probably greater than my clothes. 

Regardless, spring felt welcoming when coming out of winter. The days were longer and the sun seemed warmer. People at school joked that life feels like it’s worth living again. People from my hometown posted to their social media that someone from our high school died in a car crash. People kept sharing the same picture of him: he was a white man wearing a Native American headdress at one of our football games with a grin. The school mascot was probably established before he was born. 

I had never spoken to him, but we had a mutual friend. If I texted her about him, it would be the second time I would have texted her about one of her friends who I didn’t know very well dying. I thought about what I should say this time, but there is only so much I could say. I typed and deleted and then typed again before closing the app entirely. Everything sounded rehearsed. 

I worried about what she would think of me for not saying anything before realizing that she herself probably had bigger things to worry about. 

Summer 

I spent the summer working in the fourth largest city in Ohio. The city was rather small, and the people there moved slowly. I went grocery shopping at a small fresh market. My understanding of quaint was elevated, in Ohio of all places. 

There was a small university less than a mile from where I was living. The campus was empty except for a few students staying behind for the summer. There was a bike trail that went through campus, leading into a hidden area framed by trees and into the woods. I went on runs in the mornings on a biking trail but rarely saw any bikers. At first, I enjoyed running on the bike trail because it was flat and a nicely paved path. 

One day after work, one of the other interns said that the city we were in was in the top 3% of most dangerous cities in the United States. I didn’t believe the other intern then, and in hindsight, still do not believe them. At the time, I called my mom afterwards and made a joke about not surviving the summer — she scolded me for it. 

The following week, I felt less confident in going on runs in the morning. If I saw anyone on my way to the bike trail, I would feel it was safe enough to continue. If I saw anyone within the first mile on the trail, I would feel it was safe enough to continue. If no one else was around, I would be reminded of someone who told me she stopped running alone outdoors because of the danger

that awaits women who choose to do so. If ten minutes passed on the trail and I hadn’t seen anyone, I would get too nervous and turn around. 

More people were likely to be on the bike trail in the afternoon rather than at sunrise, but the morning temperatures were much cooler than the evening. Though, even after running in the morning, beaded sweat would reappear on my neck immediately after being wiped off. 

Towards the end of July, people began to return to campus. The longest I ran this summer was seven miles. 

Fall 

When I returned to school in September, I was worried I would have trouble falling asleep in my dorm that was scarce of air conditioning. The first few nights were bearable but not ideal; each morning I woke up with my skin feeling like the backside of scotch tape. By October, I start to feel too cold and cannot stop thinking about if I’m getting sick. 

It gets darker a lot earlier in the fall than it did in the summer. In the library, everyone has the nearest lamp to them turned on. Footsteps echo as people walk in and out of the room. Someone opens a can, and the popping sound intervenes with the silence. There’s a lamp in front of me, but I like to keep it off because the light hurts my eyes. One time, a friend jokingly called me timid. I don’t remember the context and am now not sure if it was really a joke. I can’t wait to go home but also worry that might not be what I really want.