Bye Bye Summer '25

When I was a kid, summer felt like it lasted an entire year. From the end of May until the first week of September, each day crawled by as I did activities at summer camp, jumping into chlorinated pools and twisting Chinese staircase lanyards taped to wooden picnic tables. 

It made the coming of school, the week where you'd see all your classmates again after what had felt like ages, that much more exciting. The shift in seasons, the end of the warm days and the start of cool winds, of the smell of looseleaf paper notebooks and book socks stretched over battered textbooks.

As an adult, my summers end a little differently now. I’m on the train platform at 7 a.m., the morning air cool enough to make me shiver. I clutch my headphones to my ears and hunch my shoulders against the breeze.

My eyes scan for a seat on the Metro North, slipping beside a woman who has her tote bag propped up on the seat beside her. I loom over her, looking down with apologetic eyes that say 'I know this is annoying, but I need a seat.' She shifts her bag without a word. We commute in silence.

No more soccer games with camp friends. No more lining up for candy at the canteen with a pocketful of change. Instead, I’m on the 15th floor of my office building, the year-around air conditioning blasting to create it's own monotonous climate system. I watch as my colleague pulls a Diet Coke from the vending machine, and try to guess the name printed on the “Share a Coke With…” label. In here, the florescents simulate a second sun, and the seasons flatten.

The days blend into one another, a smooth, unbroken rhythm. I no longer feel the build of summer, the gentle warm-up of May, the searing heat of July, the first crisp September morning. Instead, it creeps up on me with a suddenness that leaves me almost startled.  Yes, I think, of course. Eventually summer ends and fall begins, this is the order of it all. 

Summertime boredom once pushed me to find a new way to braid hair or learn choreography with my gaggle of friends for the camp talent show. Now, summer slips in quietly, startles me with a brief embrace, and is gone. When I look back, I find the details already fading, the specific moments blurring together, leaving me to wonder how the time passed and what I did to enjoy the heat I’d spent all of December craving.

That’s why I love taking photos. It helps me keep a record of the ordinary magic in everyday life that I tend to forget as time passes. This post is my way of sharing a few snapshots from this summer 2025, and to say goodbye to it. Fall is on its way, bringing one of the biggest changes I'll ever experience, and I'm so ready for it. See you next season :)