Summer's Fruit

Goodbye to the days of peaches, breezes, and inspired, warm mornings. Hello to layers, snot on your cheeks, and seeing the snow and going back to bed. Hello to long, hot showers, lounging in sweats, and a shot of Jameson at the bottom of your cup of French press as you snore on the couch. Oh, sure. There is some in-between time for crisp mornings, leaves caught in your hair, and steaming apple cider. For seeing your breath in the air as you wait at the line, and sunny game days in long-sleeves - no coats needed. But the clock is ticking down on this wonderful, beautiful, breathtaking, groundbreaking - and heartbreaking- summer.

A summer in which we became men and women. In which we found new loves, new friends, and learned to laugh and cry and scream with all of them. Those seeds were planted in the gold of early sunrise, and their tall, full stalks -packed with juice and life - reaped on the hot rivers of steamy blacktop in humid afternoons. Now we bring them inside, to age and mature, to bring to life their full aroma and flavor.

You will always tend the fields, as you have every summer. But as each September passes and the sun sets earlier and earlier, you'll look back on each harvest as though it were the only one you ever reaped. And it was. Every single blossom was unique, every juicy bite was a one-of-a-kind experience.

Let them enliven your winter. Let them spread light to take away the darkness. And take nothing of them for granted. For they will get you through the icy mornings, the long days at work, and that cold walk home from the bus stop. Laugh with them at happy hour, and have them over for dinner. Give them the same care and love you gave as when they first sprouted out of that tender, new soil. For they will give you so much more in return. They are what made this summer what it was, and the person whom you became while laboring through it's heat.