Summer Came to Montana, and there was no turning back.

Anxiety rises in my throat, threatening to choke me. The air is an incessant frenzy that no amount of A/C can calm tho my face shows pure chill. My brain is dialed to a critical volume that blurs my vision.

I don’t like Summer. Especially as a bartender. The waves of curious and belligerent strangers from Ohio to Florida never cease. This is when we make our money. This is the “make hay while the sun shines” everyone tells you about. But this is when I hate my life.

Give me the poverty of football season and the smell of sweaty snow soaked jackets every time. Jump me forward to familiar faces and streets free of RVs.

Jaded July is underway and we still have Angry August to go. There are very few things I enjoy in summer. Mostly I’m exhausted and uncomfortable and don’t have time for the people I love or the life I moved here to create.

I hate that part.

In the midst of this season, I’m grateful for the small moments of happiness, the occasional chance to be on water, eating breakfast in my yard, catching up with a friend in a parking lot, the one camping trip we can squeeze in, watching Luna learn to stay on a paddle board.

There is very little I find redeeming about Summer. But those little things mean the world.