Goodbye, goodbye. I will hold back a tear, as you whisk by too quickly. The end always comes before I am ready for it. You leave too soon, saying goodbye before I have fully said hello.
Hello to sun drenched mornings where the sunshine peeps through my window blinds, reaching out to touch my face before I have even walked out the door. Could I ever have my fill of watching the world wake up over the rim of my mug of tea? The world stretches awake, languid and lazy on those bright mornings. The birds happily twitter gossip from their perches, unhurried by time or cold. They can tell stories with every tiny detail in place. If I could understand their speech, what secrets of my neighbors would I hear?
This year, the day I took the long evenings for granted, is the day they ended. No more long picnics on the back porch in bare feet and shorts. No more dancing in the twilight to music only I can hear. The hours in which to tramp around my backyard or lay in the sunshine reading are no more. They have been restricted to the midday, when all I can do is stare out the window and wish my job paid me to dance in the sunshine. All I can do is look back at all the evenings I wasted, and wish I had spent them in the sun, for they have ended, and I can not bring them back again.
There is a contentment that emanates from my skin when I am warm, when the sunshine on my skin has erased every memory of chills and shivers. A quiet pressure against my busy mind, slowing down the anxious worries. I am pressed into the current moment, the glorious warmth pulling me back to earth and away from the hypothetical. The heat a reminder that I am more than thought and soul. I am a physical being. My body is a part of me, and it demands attention in the summer. To be washed and oiled, to be taken care of and cherished. The world is warm, my body is warm, and it is awake.
You are my season of adventure. When I say goodbye to my home and hello to new horizons. You are my season of new. Plans are forged, quests are set out on, and friends are made within your long days. You are my season of joy. I walk around with smiles simply because the sunflowers are blooming and it rained last night. You are my season of simplicity. When the world slows down enough that I can keep up with it and thrive among the days at home and the days outside.
Goodbye sunshine, goodbye heat. Goodbye long evenings, goodbye bright mornings. I will hold fast to your memory until you find your way through the long year and back to me again.
Shaina Merrick
The Beauty of a Story 