Fall Night Air…

It was a cool fall night tonight. I opened the window and a memory hit me. That brisk night air and shine from the stars reminded me of Halloween. It was such a nostalgic feeling. I remembered spending the month figuring out what I was going to dress up as, watching my mother sewing it to look perfect (the princess costume that I wanted to wear every single year), and then getting excited to put it on as the sun went down that night after anxiously awaiting it to come…and then making it out the front door and down the steps of the house…only to collapse with an asthma attack. My father would pick me up and carry me back into the house where I’d hold myself up on a table so I could get enough air into my lungs to stop the stream of tears from pouring down my face. My sister would take my trick-or-treat bag with her and say to each neighbor, “Could I get some candy for my sister too? She’s sick.”…I bet they think to this day that there was really only one of us and that she was making it all up. She was a little bit deviant! (I’d be worried that she is reading this and getting offended by that statement if I didn’t just get off the phone with her from talking her through how to drag and drop a file from her desk top to her c: drive…) I stood inside the house in my costume all night, usually in the bathroom where the shower was running so the steam would open my airways enough to not have to go to the hospital. This went on year after year. The weather would change to fall air and I’d stop breathing. Isn’t it strange that the night air doesn’t trigger that as a “bad” memory? I actually think it’s kind of a warm feeling now. I love the fall now. I still have a little issue with breathing from time to time if someone brings a dog around me or wears clothes with horsehair on them, but there is something so touching about the fall. Maybe it was nice to be the only child left in the house for a few hours that night each year? I probably shouldn’t have eaten the candy collected that night. Anyone who would sit and eat a bag of chocolate would likely have an asthma attack- allergic or not! It is a food group, that as it turns out, is nowhere on the food pyramid. (I have a friend who would likely fight me on this point. I actually think she has replaced the vegetable category on the pyramid with chocolate. Oh well…it hasn’t done her any harm. She still has a nice figure and from the looks of it, her teeth haven’t rotted out of her head yet! Go chocolate!)

I replaced wheezing with fitness when I was 19 years old. I would never leave the house without a work out. It has completely controlled my asthma and is part of my morning routine. I had a boyfriend for many years that hated the fact that I would jump up at 5am and workout every single day. Come to think of it, I’m not sure why it made him so mad? Now that I look back, he didn’t like me at all so I suppose it must not have been the working out. He wouldn’t let me wear shoes in the car cause he was afraid I’d get the car mats dirty. Oh well!…That’s actually a good habit to get into! I don’t take it to that extreme anymore but I do have 2 sets of floor mats so I can quickly change out the dirty ones for neatly armor-alled ones. My mother got annoyed at me one time because she was sitting in the back seat, and every time I would take a turn, she’d slide from one side of the car to the other. The first time it was funny when she accused me of armoralling the leather seats…but after the 5th or 6th time, it was just sort of mockery that she apparently weighs much less than I do and is 5’8”. Of course, if you ask me, there’s got to be a way to keep yourself from slamming with full force into the back door on the opposite side from where you were sitting every time there’s a curve in the road. What do I know though? As for the boyfriend…is it petty that I sort of hope he wonders from time to time where that $3 candle holder that I took from our house went…

Anyway…I think I’m going to go for a hike in the woods tomorrow. I love the fall now…