Dear Summer,

This year, like with any other relationship, you brought along happiness, sadness, joy, pain and a whole lot of memories. I knew you were coming into my life; I wished for you for months in advance, planned for you for even longer and will miss you for weeks on end.

But here’s the thing. I hold you responsible for a lot of shitty things that happened. I will always associate you with taking Buddy from me. I will always remember you as bringing my ex happiness with a new girl and me loneliness. I will blame you for growing apart from certain friends who returned home for the break because of you.

And honestly, you really weren’t all that pretty. A lot of days you’d make me sweat on my professional work clothes and smell the horrible body odor of others on the subway. Sure, you played a nice little Sour Patch Kids “sour-then-sweet” game and you’d then give me a pretty sunset at night, but I still remember everything else you did to me.

So yeah, I didn’t really think I would miss you– I thought I was kind of over you, honestly, and ready to take out my jeans and sweaters and sip on my pumpkin spice flavored beverages. While everyone else was updating their Facebook status and posting their “don’t leave me, summer” Instagram photos, I was kind of happy, I was ready to take a break from you. I was looking forward to you taking your over heated days and often stormy nights and moving on far, far away from me.

But then it hit me as I was buying school supplies at Staples a few nights ago. I was sitting on the carpeted floor in the corner, surrounded by at least eight different agenda options. Up until this point, I was happy to rid myself of my “summer” problems and see my friends again, have my normal routine and get back to moving forward in my life. But as the nice man who worked there came over to check on me, I realized I was not ready for summer to be over. He politely asked if he could help with anything, and if I was doing okay. And as soon as it came out of my mouth, I realized I was definitely not okay. I began telling him how the stress of choosing the right agenda was overwhelming me. I explained how the agenda I chose would determine how I performed in my classes, therefore would determine my grades, which would determine my GPA, which would determine my entire academic career, therefore my entire actual career, and in turn my salary, so on and so forth and was therefore one of the biggest decisions of my life. He looked at me like I was a little crazy, which I was, and then sat down next to me. He asked me to tell him the pros and cons of each agenda and we would decide together which was the right choice for my future. One didn’t have enough space between the lines for my overly-girlish handwriting, another didn’t have enough space on the sides, not allowing for my scribbly notes of things to remember, one of them had inspirational quotes which was nice, but also could distract me while in class.

So as we narrowed down the options, I realized that even though I may have been ready for summer to be over, I wasn’t ready for fall to start. At least not the school part - I was ready for the pumpkin patches and apple picking and the football Sundays, but not the school and stress and pressure that I put on myself. And, unfortunately, you can’t just choose to piece together a life made up of fall Sundays and summer Mondays.

Summer leaving is complex. It means no more staying up all night watching movies. No more sleeping until noon and then wandering aimlessly around the city all day. No more spur of the moment adventures with new summer friends. It means homework is coming, and waking up for classes is coming, and first day of school jitters are clearly coming, if my little outburst in the middle of staples is any indication.

So then I started thinking, well what do I want? I clearly don’t want fall, but I also don’t want summer. That’s the thing about life though, it doesn’t matter what I want. Summer will pass, fall will come, and soon enough the whole cycle will repeat itself and I will be writing my “Hello, Summer” article. So I guess the best I can do is live each day for what it is, appreciate the good times, appreciate that the bad times, too, shall pass, and thank the nice man at staples for helping me choose the perfect agenda.

Until next summer,

Ali