I miss the Summers of my childhood when vacations meant travelling or simply being at home doing nothing, all day long. Sitting back at home now, I feel summer arriving with all its masculinity. It brings with it the same scorching heat and warm breeze but it still feels different and I keep getting memories from the summer that has long gone by.

The only reason (for why I feel differently about this summer) that seems right enough is that, times have changed. I live far away from home and my brother farther. He comes twice in a year for a week. I come once every two months for a day or two. Vacations mean different now. It means more like coming back home and learning the changes that have occurred while we were gone. We still travel, but not often. We still travel but not always together. Most of the times my brother is not in the frame and sometimes both of us. So the time we four get, we make sure that most of it is invested in traveling. I say 'invest' and not 'spend' for a reason. And the reason is, when we travel we create memories. Memories that keep us company during lonesome nights. Memories that keep us warm when winter gets harsh on us and it gets the kind of chilly that no quilt can shield us from. We create memories that keep us pulling towards home. Memories that force me to pick up my phone and scribble random thoughts in it.

These memories keep flooding my mind more often these days and I wonder, why?  Not because summer has gotten a different touch to it this year. It still feels the same. But everything in it, has changed. People, relationships and things. Little things. But things that matter.

We are moving apart. We are growing old. And it scares me. Changes scare me. Smiles don't seem real anymore. We have started wearing masks. The kind of music that is blaring from my music player is not the same kind that I used to listen. And when I stumble upon the one or two songs that I used to listen back then, I get nostalgic. It's a weird kind of feeling- Nostalgia - that words can hardly describe. It's a bittersweet kind of emotion. It will inflict upon you a certain kind of pain (one that you crave for) and give you pleasure at the same time.