memories and missing

summertime's end

yesterday i woke up at 6am to go down to a park along the bay. it was beautiful, foggy and chilly and wet from the last night's rain. i took a picture of sunlight glowing in rays through the clouds that i was surprised my phone camera could capture so beautifully. on the walk back it started raining, the first rain of the season. it soaked through my hair and sweater and dripped down my face and into my eyes. it was wonderful. it kickstarted the longing for rain, and autumn, and christmas, and travel that's been a low hum in the back of my mind since summer started in april. on days like this is feels like my heart breaks with every step when i miss something i can never return to. for the first time in nearly three weeks of college my head and heart and bones ache with missing my mama and dad, my siblings and my cats, my bedroom that is no longer mine, my grandparents who haven't really been mine for seven years. i miss my grandpa before he died thinking my existence is a sin. i miss my uncle steve before a global pandemic took him without letting me have said hello in four years. i miss my mom's cooking and the songs i listened to on repeat when i was nine. i miss winter when we had christmas eve with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, before i knew of who they turned out to be. i miss my hometown and all of the towns that came after it. i miss everything i've ever had in the last eighteen years before my life became this, wonderful and fantastic and heavy and sad.

the end of summer is such a unique time. bright, and sad, sunburns and melancholy. summertime ending is when i start to breathe clearly and listen to sad music, zach bryan and noah kahan. when nostalgia creeps in with much more force than it did from the months of february to august. memories flash through my mind of being a little kid seeing the redwood trees, taking trips to santa maria and santa cruz, driving through LA and seeing the California desert. driving up the mountains to home every day and seeing the scorch marks and dead trees, sledding through a hole in the neighbors fence on a snow day. i remember the music of my childhood, classic rock and country. bryan adams, journey, bon jovi, chicago, randy travis, brooks and dunn, garth brooks, jimmy buffet, will smith, montgomery gentry and every other artist in my memories playlist. i miss the times when the only thing i was thinking about was the next lyrics in a song and where my parents will take us on an adventure next. i miss everything, and the things i don't are vastly outweighed by the things i do with every part of my heart. i didn't have a perfect childhood by any means, but right now, when i look at my parents i think about how much i love them and how much i miss living in their house. all the grand and spectacular things i feel nostalgic about. all of the mundane things i feel nostalgic about. i don't think i could hate my parents if i tried. i love living this life on my own, and i'll always be sad that i can't go back. summertime ending makes me long to go to the pottery barn with my mom when i was eight one more time. summer ending is such a striking thing, fantastic and devastating. i miss playing on the castle-style playground with my siblings.