luckyshirt:

Summer.

I pulled into work this morning, and the usually bustling campus is once again a ghost town. Classes ended last week, and all the students are somewhere enjoying the new week without academic worry, or still celebrating their graduation.

I love this day every year. There is a feeling of resetting and moving on, even if it shares that space with a sense of loss as one phase of life ends for some of us.

This is heightened for me, because I lost my father this week in 2004. Three days prior, I lost my best friend at work. Just over a week before that, my grandfather. By the time that summer ended, 10 people were gone from my life. All passed away. All unrelated. 

That was also the summer my ex got pregnant with our daughter. Our first child. And the creation of a new life in the middle of all that death saved me from who knows what.

It was also this time last year that I was preparing for and took my trip to New York and Boston for my first Tweetup. That was such an amazing weekend, and was a huge turning point for me. Like a defibrillator to my life.

Then there are still those fading memories of riding to the beach every day, and road trips, and kissing Winnie Cooper in a tree.

I am a winter man, for sure. I love the holidays and the (relative) cold. But I still love you, summer. Even though you weren’t always good to me.

Related: Congratulations to all of you who are graduating. You should be nothing but proud of yourself right now for sticking through what may have been unbearable sometimes for hope. Hope that your efforts will be rewarded. I hope they are, and wish all of you the best of luck. Good job.

This amazing photograph was taken by ~juxxo.