hikes & home

This weekend felt like fall. It actually felt more like winter at some points, even. It got down to jacket-jeans-boots weather, though of course I was unprepared for this and fooled myself into thinking that wearing a shirt with three-quarters length sleeves was basically the equivalent of wearing a sweater. Yeah, no. This morning, though, I was more prepared with my fleece jacket and sweatpants over my running clothes. 

Anyway, I spent the weekend doing seasonal appropriate things like attending our school's football game which we won (well, that was Thursday but it felt like the weekend) and huddling under blankets at the cross country meet when I wasn't running and scarfing down doughnuts (can you believe I used to not like them?!) and doing lots of reading and drinking hot chocolate and going hiking a bit. I don't think I've given Texas enough credit. Yeah, it's not a typical autumnal picture like you find on Tumblr, with red and orange leaves lining a sidewalk path where a girl stands wearing an oversized hoodie and holding a Starbucks cup as she smiles to herself about the beauty of sweater weather, but it's still pretty, and more than that, it's home. I've found myself starting to appreciate my hometown a lot more lately. Maybe because it's starting to hit me that I don't have an infinite amount of time left here. Maybe because I feel like I finally have something that makes me want to stay, something tethering me here and something that makes me feel like this is right, this is where I belong. Or maybe because I've just pulled my head from out under a rock and finally realized how great it is. I mean, whatever. The heat sucks in the summer and other things suck sometimes, but overall, I'm just glad I live here, okay? It's home.