July has bled into August, and I am astounded by the nostalgia with which I think back on the loud and lively June days. They were filled with hope and love for an entire summer yet to be lived. But now I've lived most of it, and I'm left with the life I've long since settled into, one that quietly awaits the upheaval that has always been fated to arrive sometime between mid to late August. Now what occupies these days is the quiet stillness of my excitement having come to pass, reunions having been lived and running their course towards a point I know exists only now that I've reached it. Where the jittery anxiety of possibilities once hung in the hot air, all that's left is the silent wondering as to where I go next. I'm not quite sure I ever knew where to go next, but the early summer was filled with the assurance that there was something coming next, and whether or not I was ready for it, I'd be gently pulled along with it. And now it feels that I've been dumped awkwardly on a strange shore -- caught between the things I wanted and the upcoming academic year.

I spent much of the summer grasping at something I didn't know I wanted and spent the rest of the summer grasping at something I wasn't ready to have. It feels more natural to agonize over something I know the answer to, rather than let it be. And now, in this absence of something to agonize over, the air seems more still than I remember. Maybe this is the feeling that always characterizes the late summer, but this time it feels as though more than just the summer is ending. It might always feel like that.

Now in the air there hangs whispers of the return of things I wished goodbye to on my drive home. Ripples on the lake and rustling of the leaves tell me that soon I'll be doing crosswords in the grass and drinking coffee in the company of those who I've missed more than I knew was possible to miss somebody. As this summer has quietly died, the hot pavement, soft grass, and quiet voice of a friend on the phone have never let me forget that I too am loved.