the most wonderful time of the year

Hey! Hi! Remember me? I’ve missed you; It’s been a while. The last time I was here, it was early May, camping trips were taken, anniversary celebrations were had, day-to-day drudgery was endured, and after a month-and-a-half-long hiatus induced by stress and an astonishing lack of caring, I am happy to breathe a little life into this place once more and pick up where we left off.

I am happier still to lift you up and over the last several mountains of torment, fly you through the last valleys of desperation, and drop you into the now, into summertime in Seattle. It’s quite nice here. The temperatures are comfortably warm, and darkness doesn’t creep in until 10 PM. There is more weekend adventuring, more pool-lounging, and the only thing that stands between you and a belly full of Salty’s delicious seafood is all that ice cream you ate at LICK Pure Cream earlier in the day.

It’s easy for me to love this place at this time of year — when it’s perfect — and I’m beginning to forget three seasons worth of miserable weather and miserably low amounts of light, that, combined with graduate school and all things related, transformed this place into my personal, wet, 10th circle of hell. The last few weeks of spring were particularly hard for me. They threw me for a loop, took previously-made plans and scattered them hastily to the wind, reminded me to look into light boxes, and is currently making me appreciate this post-plan scattering, post-new plan making, post-desperation happiness I am feeling all the more.

Summer, without a doubt, is the best thing for this Seattleite’s soul:

‘Cause, damn. Nine months of that kind of gray really gets to me.

We know we only have a few short weeks before good weather and sunshine die a swift death, so we’ve decided to do what we can to extend this summer, and to take some time to capitalize on whatever sunshine we can get once we’re in the throes of PNW darkness once more. We’re headed on another beach(-y-ish) vacation in September with the intention to spend as much time in the sun as possible (this time with less drinking and more exploring), and planning to get out of Seattle to go to either New York, California, or Arizona — or maybe two of them — when the end of winter rolls around. Spending time in any place with reliably less-crappy weather than here can’t do us anything but good.

Until then, we’ll be soaking up what we’ve got right now in this beautiful state of ours while we’ve got the equally beautiful weather on our side. From the beaches here in the city to those on the Olympic coast, from Mt. Si to Mt. Rainier, from the views on the San Juan Islands to the ones right here at our own high rise.

At long last, we finally have that again. If you weren’t aware, we spent the past year over in South Lake Union under the spell of (an increase in) quietness, and found that aside from said quietness, there wasn’t a whole lot going on. We regretted it so much that even the suburbs (shudder) started to become appealing: even though the suburbs  (clearly) aren’t our best fit, at least they do quiet and “nothing-going-on” with excellence. We hated the half-assed atmosphere and transitional quality of SLU, and couldn’t get out fast enough. We ended up signing a lease at the building downtown where we lived last year, which occurred to us might be weird, but we really missed it over here. We are so lucky at the end of the day to come home to views of sparkling water, the mountains, and city lights. Its sounds silly, but it makes me feel so much more connected to this place. I think we’ll stay a while, because here, we feel truly at home.

It’s safe to say that with the arrival of summer, the the move, the comorbid happiness associated with both, the end of my school quarter, and Alex’s semi-vacation (time off induced by an office transition) this week, we have finally disembarked the first-world struggle bus. The goal now is to self-care like no one’s business. Putting Em in doggy daycare and going for day hike alone with Alex, a swim in the pool, a marathon of Harry Potter, and a homemade pizza are all in order. More blogging, too, because: there are a lot of feelings to talk about.

Like feelings surrounding puppy adolescence, and feelings about this age 30 transition thing, and feelings about Tricare (on a scale of one to even, I can’t) and did I say feelings about PUPPY ADOLESCENCE? I think that even Kanye West had a little something to say about that particular topic:

‘Til next time, you can find me self-caring at the pool, staring at the sun (!!!) outside, and beginning my quest to fill up on enough summer to last me until next year. And that shit — relaxation, actually participating in personal happiness-inducing activities — might be just as cray as anything else that has happened this year.