2. 2026

The first really hot day always catches me off guard.

Not because I didn’t see it coming. The calendar warns you. As does my iPhone. 

The trees start rehearsing. The evenings stretch themselves a little longer each night. And still, somehow, summer arrives like someone opening a door you forgot was there.

For months, I have been living in a season of waiting.

Waiting for answers. Waiting for clarity. Waiting to feel like myself again. Waiting for the ache of certain things to loosen their grip. I spent so much time staring at what had ended that I almost missed what was quietly beginning.

But summer has a way of interrupting grief.

Not curing it. Not erasing it. Just gently reminding you that life keeps reaching toward the light, whether you’re ready or not.

The flowers that line the parking lot outside my window don’t know what I’ve lost. The birds don’t care who left. The sun rises every morning with the same confidence it always has. There is something strangely comforting about that. The world does not stop for heartbreak, and maybe that’s a mercy.

Lately I’ve felt myself changing in small, almost invisible ways.

I laugh before I think about whether I’m allowed to.

I make plans without checking who else will be there.

I buy flowers because I want them.

I leave dishes in the sink and paintings unfinished and realize the sky doesn’t fall when things aren’t perfect.

The days are getting longer, and somehow I am too.

Not bigger. Not harder. Just wider. More room for things. More room for possibility. More room for joy to sit beside sadness instead of replacing it.

Summer always felt like freedom when I was younger. Three months where anything could happen. Somewhere along the way I forgot that freedom isn’t something a season gives you. Sometimes it’s something you have to reclaim.

And maybe that’s what this summer is.

Not a fresh start. Not a dramatic reinvention.

Just a return.

To myself.

To the parts of me that existed before I spent so much time trying to be what someone else needed.

The air smells different now. The evenings linger. The light hangs around a little longer before saying goodnight.

And for the first time in a while, I think I might too. 🌿☀️