Summer.

Time flies when you're having fun (or, you know, working a part-time job and sleeping too much while also somehow being exhausted all of the time).

Summer is bittersweet. I want last summer back, when we were all blind with optimism and naivety and thought that if we just put enough effort in, there was no way we would lose each other. I miss driving around at three in the morning, my fingers on the window edge as the stars passed us by. I want to go back to the nights that turned into mornings, sneaking back inside at 5 in the morning to see my mother getting ready for work and wondering why, oh why, I was up so late.

Life, though, is good. It's just a different type of good, a more mature type of contentment. I've been spending my days working at Old Navy or working on my newest novel at coffee shops. I went out last night and got ice cream with friends, and it felt familiar. It was reminiscent of last summer, back before any of us had any responsibilities. I'm an adult now who spends too much money on clothes and has to fill her tank once a week because she gets lost too damn often.

I've been spending time with a nice boy who says the right things and makes me laugh. Life is simple, and I'm not putting any faith in ordinary things. I've been to the library a few times and have poured my spare time into realistic fiction, breathing life from these fake romances that would never come to life in the real world.

I'm happy in a way that I haven't been for a while. I'm content, at ease with where I am and where I'm going. It doesn't mean I don't miss the way things used to be, though.

There ain't no rest for the wicked.

I've used that line before, but I'm tired and lazy, so bare with me.

Spring semester is exhausting, and it's only sylly week. To be fair, I don't even have any big assignments or taxing classes. My schedule is great, and I really like most of my professors. It's just the constant socializing and working and responsibility that's getting to me, per usual.

There isn't anything major going on in my life at the moment. Recently, I did start writing articles for Odyssey, an online magazine. It's fun and gives me something to do when I don't want to read any more for my classes. You can check out my previous articles at http://theodysseyonline.com/author/ashleystahmer.

In my sphere of pop culture, the most exciting thing to happen recently is the confirmation of a Gilmore Girls revival, via Netflix. The majority of the cast has been confirmed to return, including all of Rory's hunky ex-boyfriends and some fan favorites, like Lane and Kirk. I feel good about this, but like all things in life: have high hopes and low expectations.

I'm off to write my next article for Odyssey and probably eat three pounds of caramel cluster trail mix. Stay warm and don't underestimate the value of good hot chocolate.

2015 was wild.

This time last year, I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go to college. I was talking to a boy simply to waste time. I was looking forward to a long list of big things coming that seemed so far away.

Life is crazy.

I went to Disney World with my best friends on our senior class trip and had the best week of my life. We danced to Trap Queen at 2 in the morning and ate chicken nuggets for a week straight. We hosted a snack night on the pool deck with all of our extra food and made friends with people I forgot we even went to school with. I ate breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and promposed to a boy through a vine that I will forever be proud of.

And then we came home and life went on, too quickly. We went to prom. I went with the boy from this time last year, because life is strange and people always mean more than you think they will. It was a crazy night with good food and bad dancing. We wound up at a diner at 2:30 in the morning. It was the kind of night you see in the movies. I only remember bits and pieces because I was so happy but so tired. We spent the weekend away where I wound up listening to the ocean in the middle of the night, out in the sand where I couldn't see anything because of the fog.

On a brutally hot and disgusting day in June, I graduated from high school. I don't remember much, honestly. I was sitting next to a kid who was chewing tobacco but was nice enough not to let me step in it in my heels. It started raining as I waited to walk on stage and get my diploma. We spent the night on a boat where it was cold, and I was exhausted. That night was the start to a summer of looking at the stars and eating mozzarella sticks at midnight. It was the beginning of the end of a chapter.

Over the course of 2015, I visited the University of Delaware and made my decision to spend the next four years of my life there. I started school at the end of August. Over the course of the past few months, I've learned how to successfully do laundry at one in the morning, the perfect combination of vegetables on my Subway sandwich when the dining hall closes before I'm done my homework, and how to successfully get eight hours of sleep while living in a glorified youth hostel. I made friends at school and figured out how to keep my ones from home. I grew up a little but not a lot. I'm a freshman in college: it's in my wiring to make mistakes.

I don't know if it was the best year of my life, but it was pretty damn good.