They frightened the babies and you know they've got two flashing eyes

Summer's over. 

The thought sat on my shoulders like a heavy child, or spread through my thoughts like a disease. It multiplied and duplicated and consumed everything, sat on my windowsill like dust and followed me around like my shadow. Driving home to meet my new niece, Brooke and Matts new baby girl born Sunday late afternoon, I let the thought of summer's absence go along with my concept of time.

And all of a sudden I'm driving through the loop singing along to Brand New and I'm in high school. And then I'm driving down A1A to Capistrano Drive to sneak into the first boys house to ever "break my heart." And next thing you know I'm with my friends driving to a nightclub on xanax and shots of tequila my freshman year of college. Or driving alone to my mothers stoned and sleepy after 4AM to find her passed out in the patio. I kept driving and all of these memories, instances, happenings, they all came flooding back. Because they happened last summer, or the summer before, or a summer during high school, and they meant so much at the time. Even now, they mean something, built something up, taught a lesson. They're a part of me- today and the summers to come- they would echo with the new moons and sun showers. They would echo in empty beer cans and old tubes of unused lipstick.

Time flies by and then I'm walking into the hospital, not for death this time, but for new life. A new life that is about to begin and develop and one day become a person with feelings, problems, and a past. A person that one day will enjoy driving through the loop with her windows down listening to her favorite band. A girl one day that will drive to meet the boy that breaks her heart. A teenager that will one day try prescription drugs and sneak into nightclubs with her friends. And one day she'll be sad summer's over. And it will happen each year, and each year she'll think back to the last.

The woman at the front desk says, "Where are you headed? Oh, that's the fourth floor, the babies floor- I can tell you're going there with that big smile on your face."

I walked into my sisters room at the hospital. And there is her new born baby girl, less than 24 hours old, wrapped up in a blanket placed ever so carefully on the bed. She was sleeping, and everyone in the room seemed calmly excited, a silent buzz I could catch between everyones eyes. 

I held little Harper and I started crying because I could feel it, her future and past that would one day weigh on her shoulders like a heavy child, spread in her thoughts like a disease. 

then meet me after the world with the shivers

The look on his face was eager, anxious, and maybe a little hungover. His shirt was wet and heavy with sweat the way mine was on moving day one week before. The difference besides timing was I moved just a few streets away- he was moving a few states, heading North, Chicago bound. With the moving truck basically packed, his old room empty and clean, Taylor looked oddly ready for this huge change. His friends, roommates, and even his roommates dog looked more afraid, more sad, even more reluctant. I kept making jokes, talking fast, talking over him to avoid the bubble in my throat that was coming up quick like bile- I choked back tears and tried to keep smiling, anything for him to realize how happy I was for him, how excited I was for his different life. I rushed to my car using the excuse that I'd be late for work to escape the goodbye- I wasn't good with goodbyes. This was meant to be temporary I reminded myself, but at the moment of separation I knew it would feel so permanent. Because I had no idea when I'd actually see him again- life too easily can get in the way, and most the time it's excusable. Things happen, time passes, and a goodbye just makes it so painfully obvious.
All that we've gone through, watching each other change and transform, loss of hair and beards, experiencing death and heart ache, watching the absence of seasons always present in the Florida sun. Drunk or rolling, happy or upset, stoned or sober- each memory separately and then all at once came rising up. And they told me, "you never know just how much someone is going to mean to you when you meet them." I thought back to when I met you over a year ago, I just thought I was dancing next to a stranger at a bar I might never go to again. Who could guess? I knew we both had no idea. And that was sort of beautiful.
I drove away and you stood on the back porch as you watched me. The sun was behind you and it outlined your body with a golden glow. I waved goodbye and awkwardly blew you a kiss, the tips of my fingers hitting the roof of my car. You kept your composure, confidence, and cool as you always had before. The CD you burned me was playing, incidentally my favorite Animal Collective song "Fireworks." It sang:

"What's the day?" "What you doing?"

"How's your food?" "How's that song?"

                        man it passes right by me, it's behind me, now it's gone

and I can't lift you up cause my mind is tired
 it's family beaches that I desire

that sacred night where we watched the fireworks

they frightened the babies 
and you know they've got two flashing eyes

and if they are color blind, they make me feel

 That you're only what I see sometimes.