Where did the Summer go?

The summer is flying by. I looked at my planner this morning and couldn't believe it's August 7th already. No, I haven't been avoiding calendars or have been living on a deserted island for the last two months with no concept of time. It literally just hit me this morning--as I sat down at my computer for work, and decided to write this blog instead--that the summer is almost over. Labor Day, the official end of the summer season, is three weeks away.

What the heck happened summer?

Regardless of the fact that the East Coast has had maybe.....3 weeks of truly summer hot days in this entire three month period and it's rained almost twice a week, it just hasn't felt like a true summer. And yes, I've done summery things that I haven't touched on in this blog--gone to the shore a few times, swam in a pool, worn flip-flops and shorts, took a vacation with my sisters to Florida (and FINALLY Disney World), and got pretty wicked sun-burn on multiple occasions.

 

But it's been different.

And recalling all that has happened this summer, I'm not too surprised. Made me realize why the summer flew by.

Thinking about how extreme things got the past weeks makes me exhausted. My life literally flip-flopped between extreme pain, to extreme joy and then back again. Summer started with a blind-sided breakup and my aunt's cancer coming back, then to my cousin pushing up her wedding and marrying the man of her dreams in time for her mother to see it, then my aunt passed, I had my first editing session with my editor for my new project, and Pop got sick and then passed a week later. And over the next few weeks I have more joys and sorrows coming--my other cousin is getting married on Saturday, without my aunt there to see it. My sister is giving birth to her second child on Monday, and Pop will never meet his second great-grandchild.

 

I really feel like I'm on one of those teeter-totters we played on as kids. Once you get down to safety and security, you're kicked back off into the air. Almost like I'm looking for the next tragedy in life, and I can't keep my guard down.

But I guess what this summer has taught me is that that's life; we weeble and wooble between the extremes in emotion. That from great pain can come great joy, it's just a matter of finding it. Life isn't always smooth and easy, but giving in to grief and sadness isn't the way to live. We need to take the bad with the good, and just remember peace will eventually come.

I can't wait til this summer is over, to be honest. I want to get to that peace and move on.

A summer I can't wait to end, but one I will never forget.