It's that time of year when I wake up with a shiver, giddy over the chill in the air and that smell of autumn that may or may not exist outside of my own imagination. I put on a scarf or a sweater, make coffee, and proceed to ignore the afternoon as it warms up, because it's still summer, but I'm ready for it to be fall.

I was running this morning and it was a damp and comfortable 60 degrees, but the sun was shining on parts of the sidewalk and I thought about how amazing it is that I could be running in Virginia (in Farmville or Roanoke or Charlottesville), or I could be running in Minneapolis, and although I am not the same person I was seven years ago, I can feel almost exactly the same at this moment that I did at that moment.

I made a turn on a new loop and was surprised by the smell of coffee coming from a shop on the corner. The coffee shop is right by our apartment building, but looking at it from a different angle; coming at it from a different street, startled me. It looked different, and I felt disoriented. I'm still getting to know my new neighborhood.

It reminded me of the time my old roommate Caroline, our friend Maggie, and I sat on the steps of a building on Longwood's campus before classes started our freshman year. I remember the cold roughness of the cement steps and the sort of horizontal platforms that jutted out on either side, and how later, one afternoon, I walked past that building on my way to something like I always did and realized that it was the same place we had sat that late summers night, weeks before.

I have moved almost every year since starting college in 2006, and each time, it has been at the end of a summer. August awakens a nostalgia in me, and I want to start over in some way every time autumn nears.

The promise of unfamiliar corners becoming ordinary fixtures is something I like. Settling in feels good.

I took the long way to an appointment on Sunday and stopped by Hollins University, the campus where I got my master's degree in Children's Literature. It had just stopped raining, and I had just met my dear friend Shawna for lunch in Daleville. The sight of the library and the post-rain mist on the mountain behind it brought back memories of the summer I spent there, dirty chai lattes in hand and copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit tucked under my arm.

I had just finished up a year of working for my parents and was taking that summer and the following year off to finish my graduate work. Rob and I moved to Charlottesville and he studied at UVA while I opened a coffee shop downtown every morning and wrote every afternoon. At first it was scary and I was anxious and clumsy and everything felt uncertain, but we soon hit our stride and I started to figure things out and now I look back on it as one of the happiest times of my life so far. My friends were there, and Rob was there, and we made that little apartment with the green carpet and the terribly small kitchen feel like home.

On the way home from Philadelphia on Saturday, we drove through Tyson's Corner and passed by Rob's office headquarters. The overcast morning and crazy drivers reminded me of our six months apart before he moved even further to Minnesota. I would drive to DC on the weekends and we'd spend time together, visiting the mall at Tyson's Corner and eating at a new restaurant every night. The distance scared me so much, and I cried every Sunday evening when it was time to go home, but as our car passed by that Saturday, I missed that place.

Shawna has been one of my best friends for longer than I can remember, and today she's heading from Roanoke to Florida to start medical school. Yesterday we sat in a coffee shop and laughed, telling stories and watching the rain pour down outside. She is constantly making me proud and inspiring me to be braver, and I wouldn't be where I am today without her friendship and example. And I wouldn't be even half as brave as I am today without the promise of Rob.

Those things and places that once felt so uncertain become memories of the days where you knew exactly what you were doing. Hollins and Charlottesville and visiting DC were once causes of anxiety for me, and visiting them today makes me feel more like myself again. So today, as I begin my last week of work at my current job before moving to Minneapolis next week, I know that some time from now, I'll look back on our time in Minnesota with confidence and familiarity.

I'm ready for this next adventure.

Three years ago at this time, my roommate, Caroline, and I sat at a bar drinking dirty Shirleys after our last exams of college. She would go on to nursing school after graduation, and I would apply to and quickly begin a graduate program, but at that moment, sitting on those bar stools with cheap cocktails before us, the life that we had gotten so used to, and so good at, was ending.

There was a week and a day between the last exam and graduation--a time called Senior Week--where everyone who was graduating stuck around and did some considerable drinking. Every moment of Senior Week was planned by the university for the more obnoxious students, the ones with more class spirit than they knew what to do with, but I was never exactly one of those students. Caroline and I made our way through a couple of sponsored barbecues and the cocktail party with the President, but the majority of our Senior Week was spent together, in our apartment, out to lunch, getting manicures, or running through those legendary fountains in the middle of the night.

There were no papers to be written, no exams or presentations for which we had to prepare; nothing to do but pack up boxes of our belongings and reminisce about the past four years. It was sweet and sometimes boring, and we'd laugh about having nothing to do. I would wake up without an alarm clock and wander into Caroline's room, get in her bed, and we'd watch a movie, first thing in the morning. And then it was 11:30 AM, so we'd go out to lunch, the only ones under 60 in the whole restaurant.

I look back on that week as bizarre and a little scary, but so fun. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to jump off and fly away as soon as I boxed up the last of my books.

My brother is graduating on Saturday. This is his Senior Week. And as I looked back to remember what it felt like then, I could feel it, not from reminiscing, but because even three years later it's still there. That feeling of potential, and blindness, and a little bit of fear, and a lot of excitement, all wrapped into one.

Have a wonderful week, Sean.

See you Friday.