As much as I’ve tried to deny it, Summer is over in a most definitive fashion. Today opened gray, cold and drizzly, with more of the same forecast for the week. Shorts are mostly packed away, and I’m wearing long-sleeve shirts for the first time in ages.
After a couple of months off hiking and enjoying the great outdoors, I have resumed going to the gym on a regular basis. The scales say I’ve only gained two pounds in that time, but my self image says otherwise. Though re-starting is hard, I’m looking forward to embracing that routine again.
Over the course of the summer, I kept company with three lovely women. One bailed on me because it was not an exclusive relationship. One moved out of state. (Not because of me. I think. 🙂 And the third has returned to school chasing her doctorate, and will be largely MIA for the next nine months. Time for me to get active about meeting new people and forcing myself to be sociable, even when it runs counter to my natural introverted impulses.
I’ve signed up to be a math/science tutor at the local community college, and that starts in full this week. I did a huge amount of tutoring in college and really enjoyed the hell out of it. I’m a little nervous about being rusty on a variety of math topics; we’ll see how warranted that is and how long it takes me to get my feet under me. It’s early in the term yet, so you’d like to think the classes are starting with fairly manageable topics and problems.
Living in a region with real weather and seasons, I find that I’m much more aware of the passage of time now. When I lived in Cali, ten years of working at the big fruit seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, with barely a ripple when the calendar notched another year. Now, I find myself actively aware of another season slipping through my fingers never to be seen again. And like a water flowing around and past your body, more is coming right behind it, but it can never be exactly like it was before. Heh, maybe my new awareness has less to do with passing seasons and more to do with simply getting older.