Colleen Conrad

The summer is over.

It’s been barely two weeks, but I already miss Monday night wiffle ball and meeting Allison to write at Mozart’s.  I’m nostalgic for those first blisteringly hot, sunset-heavy Happy Hour practices filled with eager new players.  I long for the limitless unstructured time; for the quiet of Robin’s lake house; for the bustle of Barton Springs on Tuesday afternoons and during free swim after dark.  I miss writing into the early morning hours, my eyelids determinedly rejecting sleep; the Decemberists show at Stubb’s with Gina and Naz; Rainey Street for Jess’s birthday; True Blood with Tim and Megan and the Roller Derby with Tina.  I wistfully (and regretfully) recall dashing around 6^th Street for a downtown scavenger hunt with ReVA, Julia, and Libbie, dressed alarmingly like Axl Rose (and then sitting with Hoag for an inexplicably long time on the curb after the hunt had ended).  I want to go back to free yoga with Bonesaw on Saturday mornings; to summer league with Dana and Hannah and the Full Service guys; to the Master’s tournament in Ohio with Dawngo and Harper and Leigh—heat, humidity and all.

The summer came and went in a flash; a disarming blur; a dry hurricane.  I blinked and it was gone, and I only had a few stray beers, Facebook photos, and awkward tan lines to prove that it had happened at all.  It was a dreamy jumble filled with snapshots of smiling people.  A little chaotic, gloriously unpredictable, at once foggy and crystal-clear.

The summer’s end frightens me.  I’m afraid of what this conclusion means, like I somehow didn’t capture the moments firmly enough (as if I could hold on to them at all).  These memories were fireflies that needed to be trapped in mason jars, but I wasn’t quick enough.  I was so distracted by their brilliance that I let them get away.  And now they’re lost forever, and everything will change.  I won’t be the same person that I was during this whimsical whirlwind summer.  I can’t do the same things with the same people.  It feels certain that the wonder of May, June, and July will cool like the weather. 

So all I want to do is go back.