Hey, thanks, thanks for that summer...

Something about the end of summer has always seemed to break a piece of my heart. Ever since that one sweet summer, now five years ago (gulp) I've always found the chill in the air and the return of the rain and the rush of everyday life to be bittersweet and sad. There is, to be sure, something so magical about summer days, summer nights. Even now, as an almost grown-up, I still find myself a little tipsy at the end of the day during the summer. It's a strange feeling, being tired, sunburned, and disheveled, yet energized, exhilirated, and excited. Something about summer nights that will never fade for me is the feeling that the sun going down doesn't end the day. If anything, it holds more anticipation and promise than anything else. While my daily life is filled with equal parts sweet and shitty moments, whatever happens on a summer night happens more vividly. For better or worse, I always feel more alive.

So, it's no surprise that I mourn the passing of those days and those nights every year, but over the past year or two I have learned to look forward to the fall. Now more than ever, perhaps because it so visibly and palpably signifies that which I need most in my life right now: Change. I will always be grateful to September and October for making the transition so easy. The air gradually turns colder, sure. You know that before too long it will be ass cold out, your car will need about 6 hours of defrosting before departure, and summer is nothing but a photo album on your Facebook. But for a brief period in the fall, the air is not cold but crisp. The leaves are changing but they're there. You get to wear sweatshirts again, but aren't yet cursing the cold.

And so for me, things are changing. More on this later, but I think it's time to finally let go, once and for all, of something (someone) I should never have held on to this long. Like the summer, he has been sweet and wonderful and represents so many good things that I hope to take with me. Things that will keep me warm when it's cold outside. Things I will miss in ways I don't even know how to describe. He is a season in my life. I can't keep him, and he can't keep me. We could try to hold on a little longer, but that would be like wearing shorts in October. What used to be enough isn't enough anymore. Lord knows I wish it could be different, but it can't be, and it's time to accept that, and time to open my heart and my mind to the rest of my life and everything it has in store. It's time to be a big girl.

And I don't care what anyone says. Big girls do cry.

But this is where I am, and it's time. The leaves are turning, and so must the page. I'm terrified. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to find out that it doesn't get better than him. I don't want to have to wait for time to heal me, though I know that it will. But this just the next step. The part you have to go through to get to the other side. The valley, if you will. Oh life.