“Slipping through my fingers all the time I try to capture every minute. The feeling in it. Slipping through my fingers all the time” – ABBA

Summer has a way of moving quickly, like sunlight slipping across the floor before you realize the day is even gone. Every year I expect it to linger, but this summer especially felt like it carried me forward faster than I was ready for.

It was a summer of milestones. I started grad school, a beginning that still feels thrilling and overwhelming. And I said goodbye to certainty. The kind of certainty that comes with familiar routines, clear next steps, and knowing exactly what the season ahead would look like. This summer I was reminded that life doesn’t always come with a roadmap, and sometimes all you can do is keep moving, even when the path feels hazy.

There is a bittersweetness in trading what’s familiar for what’s ahead. I’ve caught myself holding both excitement and grief in the same hand. Doors are opening and doors are closing. Somehow, that is the theme of my summer.

Still, in between the big changes, summer gave me small gifts that softened the edges. Afternoons at the farmers market, where friendships blossomed, reminding me connection can be found anywhere. Long evenings outside, where the air felt lighter and sky stretched, wide enough to hold all my questions. Phone calls and dinners with friends reminded me: even when everything shifts, the simple joys are steady anchors.

Now the air is cooling, the light is changing. Autumn is ready to step in, as it always does, and I feel myself caught in that familiar in-between – saying goodbye to summer, but also a chapter of my life that I can’t return to in the same way.

And I think that’s what growing up is: learning how to hold on to the pieces of yourself you love while letting the rest evolve. This summer taught me that goodbyes don’t erase where you’ve been, they just make room for who you’re becoming.

So goodbye to this summer. The summer that carried me out of old routines, into new beginnings, and reminded me that even in transition, there are magical moments.

With joy,

Sage