April/August and everything after

Summer-infused freewrite on an April evening.

One of the last days of April and it feels like August, the cats are liquid, spilling over the sides of couch cushions and along the floorboards, lazily half-meowing from time to time when they catch themselves dosing off. I'm wearing a cotton summer dress, practically gauze, sleepily moving throughout the way while my body adjusts to the temperature change and start of a new week after a busy weekend

.

It's weird to feel bored, a short break between when spring classes end and summer’s begins. I'd probably be more restless about it if I wasn't so tired. It's hard to believe last week I was steeped in my grief, adjusting to a life where I'll now be counting the years since I last saw my mother.

The truth is, I've been mourning so many things with that-- the iterations of life that were before it wasn't, the shifting relationships because of the shifts in me, the way certain words now have new meanings: wealth, friendship, love. I feel nostalgic and relieved and tired and hungry and stuck yet untethered, longing but grounded. More change is coming, I can feel it, but needing to accept it will come slowly, slowly and that I shouldn't be impatient, but prepared and excited to savor all this next season will bring.