As summer winds to a close and the window between relative summertime freedom and winter responsibilities dwindles, I find myself in an odd state of melancholy. Not all-consuming sadness, of course, I’ve already been through enough of that to last me the rest of my life, but a sort of nostalgic despondency for a life I’ve never lived and people I’ve never met.

But such is the feeling I get during twice annually: the end of summer and the end of the year itself. The end of the year is a solemn occasion for me, full of excitement at the prospect of a new set of 365 days, and full of poignancy for the years gone past.

The end of summer, more or less, goes along the same way. I suppose because the end of anything, whether it be a movie or book or relationship, I feel that same profound sadness. I say “profound” not out of a pretentious sense of bloated self-importance, but simply because I don’t know else how to describe this particular sensation.

I am beleaguered by a chronic sadness that will likely follow me to the grave, and the end of things amplifies its quiet whimpers to barking shockwaves. In other words, I just feel it more. Under the gray sky of stormy August, I feel isolated, lost, and alone. Far more than I typically do, but in a different way.

Usually these feelings persist because I feel alone in a crowd, an aimless soul wandering amongst the young and enthusiastic whose spirits are being drained by the demands of daily life. But at the end of the summer, I feel alone in the world, and in the universe. I feel no connection to my fellow humans, but rather a sense of fascination at these creatures I share so much with, but manage to be so different from.

Yet the world continues, with or without my excessive self-analysis. Perhaps this is why I feel this sadness, this persistent, chronic solitude. I’m not religious, or spiritual, but I do believe in something larger. What that something is I can’t say, but it makes my perception of the universe truly a large, lonely place. And since Earth is part of it, I’m constantly reminding myself it truly isn’t any different from any other rock in space.

I don’t exactly know what the point of this piece is, other than perhaps a straight white kid whose had entirely too much time on his hands to overthink’s ruminations of something that ultimately doesn’t matter. Here I am, making everybody sad again.