So Long, Summer

Today I did something that I haven’t done in ten years, maybe longer.

I played hooky.

Monday morning and I left the house with a bikini and a beach towel. I drove across the city to pick up my best friend, passing school buses along the way. The forecast said it would be 90, but early morning was kissed with cool air that I knew would only get heavier and colder as the days went on. It was the last day of summer, and I needed to touch the ocean.

We listened to 90’s rock as the freeway turned into narrow, coast-hugging highways lined with salt marshes and house boats. There was a nagging inside me– You should be working–and I told that voice, shhh.

For a moment, I didn’t want to think about book production or content marketing or Amazon rankings or how to fund my next project. I didn’t want to think about copies of the book that I wrote being ordered and shipped around the world. For an afternoon, I was just a girl at the beach with my friend, our feet and legs and bellies and backs coated in sand as we looked out at the Atlantic through our sunglasses.  I was just a girl during summer.

Summer 2015 is one for the books. Not just because of my book, but all the other changes–some planned, some not–that unfolded each day. Packing and unpacking two houses, driving into the middle of America and back, saying good-bye to a friend who inspired countless people in his quest for embracing his awesome, my first tattoo, and being comforted by friends and family over the death of my pet rabbit as they celebrated the launch of my book. Each day of this summer was packed with adventure and the unexpected–and I’m grateful for every moment.

Even today, this last day of summer, I lost a shoe: a flip-flop from the pair that traveled with me across the globe, slapping against the pavement in Osaka and Chicago and Niagara Fallsand Fort Lauderdale and Cape Cod and Cambridge. I was going to commemorate today with a photo of my toes poking out of the sand, but this was a much better way to remember the awesomeness of Summer, 2015:

Unforgettable, and awesome, in every sense of the word.

Thank you for following along in my journey–from my early posts about resisting social media, to my ramblings about work-life balance, to missing a shoe but carrying a book and hope for more adventures to come.

September, I’m ready.