An end and a beginning.

As life progresses, the seasons turn, sometimes at irregular intervals, sometimes overnight and sometimes a gradual, graceful change. I feel the seasons shifting in my own life as my two years of la vida española are over. When I think of these years I will think of golden slanting sunshine, the smell of the salty sea air mixed with the wafting of freshly fried fish, bright white Andalucían pueblos with tidy trim in the clearest cerulean imaginable. I’ll think longingly of three day weekends and late night tapas runs, which always seem to end with a visit in the wee hours to the Argentinian guy that sells handmade empanadas in the square. We’d stand in the street taking enthusiastic bites of piping hot caprese empanadas, washed down with Argentinian beer and exhilaration. The frustrations, the thousand tiny cracks of discomfort will fade away in memory to insignificance, like a new mother forgets labor pains in the blinding joy of the moments after birth. This is how it should be.

This past season has been like one long summer, filled with good fun and swimsuits and the kind of friends that you bond with hard and fast, like you’re at summer camp. We’ve been living carefree, like seagulls wheeling freely in the breeze. But all good things must come to an end, and as with actual summer, somehow we are usually inexplicably ready for autumn. It feels like that now in my own life: changes, sharpening of pencils, a more serious, homey season is in store.

When we were accepted into Harvard Law School, The Mister and I looked at each other in awe, blinking, our minds flipping through the million ways in which our lives are about to change. At the moment, I feel ready for them. The past season has been deliciously irresponsible, but sometimes after a nice long rest we wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle something grand, to use our muscles, to sweat a little bit. I don’t doubt that this next season will be exhausting at times and I’ll think longingly back to Málaga and my favorite park bench angled perfectly beneath the jasmine flowers. But that’s why we carry these summer memories with us into winter, because it will be long and sometimes hard. The promise of a well-lived life is that someday there will be another summer, of a different flavor, but nonetheless another season of reckless abandon. 

Until then, hasta luego. It's been wonderful.