It’s a funny thing that you go to school every fall for the first 18 plus years of your life and then you wake up one day and school is done. I mean, not for teachers and professors, but school is different for them, too. It’s a hard rhythm to break and it’s enough to give you a sort of strange feeling in the fall when other people are going back to school and you’re not.

Of course, it gets lessened every year, but I will say this is the first summer that I haven’t looked into grad school just so I could be going back to school. I’ve finally accepted that I don’t have a real reason to get another degree except that I really like going to school and learning things, but liking school isn’t enough justification for thousands of dollars of debt in the form of student loans when there’s no reason (career-wise) for it.

But still… Autumn means campuses and football (and eventually basketball) and reunions with people you haven’t seen all summer and I suspect there will always be a part of me that has an urge to pack up my car and drive to Chapel Hill. I understand now why “Homecoming” is always in the autumn.