It’s funny that it’s October again already. This week last year was when E and I first started dating. I don’t believe the poets and their yammer about springtime, fall and winter are the perfect seasons for falling in love. Spring is rainy and puddly and muddy and great if you want to fall in love with your galoshes or your Shop-Vac. But fall here is gorgeous: blue, blue skies on crisp days and stars out on cool nights. E and I used to make out in the Jeep with the top off and leaves would fall in from the trees around us. The weather was perfect for patios and porches and curling up under blankets. There was Halloween, E in his Superfan costume (way too realistic) and me in my Playboy Bunny outfit. At Thanksgiving there was ping-pong at my parents’ house and my dad trounced E, who then privately informed me that we could never get engaged till he could beat my dad at ping-pong and ask him for my hand. I slapped him with a paddle and told him to start practicing.

Then there was snow, holding each other up on slippery ice patches, and snowball fights that turned into snow wrestling, culminating with E shouting “This is why I love you!” for all to hear as I shoved snow down the front of his coat. There was walking on the shore of Lake Michigan on Christmas Day, taking pictures of the sand formations sculpted by the snowstorm two days before, and sharing earmuffs because we’d only brought one pair. There were Sunday afternoons of football and nights spent under a down comforter.

It was never a fairytale – there were misunderstandings and arguments and hurt, one particular knock-down, drag-out, tear-filled fight the day before Christmas. But there was love.

I’m feeling nostalgic tonight because E and I had one of our perfect fall days today and for a few moments, it really felt like nothing had changed. We stayed in bed till noon, sat on the porch and enjoyed the blue sky for awhile, watched football. We snuggled on the couch and almost fell off together during the ridiculous last two minutes of the Colts game. He held my hand when I drove him to work.

But I took him to work at a different restaurant today. I didn’t have a beer with him while we watched football. He has a different quarterback in fantasy football. My hair is shorter, less highlighted. He’s lost a little weight. Superficial things have changed and while we’re both aware that we can’t start over fresh (because can you ever?), the timing of this reunion of ours just seems very poignant right now. The air is crisp, the leaves are just starting to turn again, and maybe we’re turning too.

Or maybe we’re not. Maybe this will implode again tomorrow. Maybe this is a love that, no matter how good it once was, can’t be salvaged. I’m trying to be realistic, to step back and look at the events, good and bad, of the year that brought us to this point. But the funny thing is that no matter how pragmatic or even cynical I try to be to protect myself, the tiny things keep adding up. It’s football season, the leaves are changing, it’s the first week of October, and we’re back to staring into each other’s eyes and wondering what comes next.

It’s time to learn to trust each other again.