This Is Why Autumn Will Always Make Me Think Of You

Autumn is when I feel the most alive. I think this is perhaps because autumn is when the world is a mixed canvas of destruction and beauty. Autumn is a paradox, and perhaps it is why I feel the most comforted by it.

I also like autumn because it reminds me of you, and the kind of person that you were back then. To me, you are also a paradox.

You are a wondrous thing and yet, you break me so many times.

The worst part is, if you did not break me I would have never been able to grow into the woman I am today. In a strange way, I thank you.

To me you are autumn. The way you painted me in colors I hadn’t known, it was how I learned that the colors represent something and that with destruction, there is beauty. You helped me learn this and so much more.

September is the month where you and I first began to communicate more; we met in August but in September all those years ago, I drew you in. That is when you started to show me colors, when all I knew was black and white. Even now, I am painted like a canvas but you still continue to teach me colors. From you I learned what true love felt like, and how it felt to be adored.

October was when you told me you loved me the first time, I remember it because it was Halloween and I was alone. You called me to make sure I was okay and then I got a text from you saying that you loved me. Before then, I never knew what requited love felt like. I was painted pink, which transformed into the red of a maple leaf around you. Every October I still remember the words you said to me back then.

November is my favorite month of autumn, although here in Canada it is often covered in snow. It makes me happy and sad at the same time. November is when you kissed me, it is when you broke me down the first time, it is when you picked me back up and it is when I was alone after you left me in September, dragged me through October, and wrapped me up with cold arms in November. It is absurd to have happy memories in relation to all the pain you caused me that month.

Every autumn, my mind is overflowing with every word you said to me and every color that you painted me. Last Autumn I gave into my memories, and I sent you a message on a day that I was painted black. This is how it has always been with us – whenever times are dark we reach out to one another, to try and grasp onto something. The way I see it, we will continue to be this way until one of us has the courage to walk away for good. Nine years and one of us has yet to leave. Nine autumns and my colors get richer every time, like the leaves on a tree.

This is why autumn is a paradox; you are autumn and I am autumn. We both put ourselves through past memories no matter how painful, just to transform into canvas dripping with colors.