Joan Didion once famously wrote: "Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."

August is over. In some ways, it feels like the end of a very long year – a year filled with rainbow cakes and last goodbyes, pink forms and purple flowers. And when all that's said and done, life still goes on: texts and emails and cross-country flights, all reminders of the 3,000 miles between my head and my heart.

But my life hasn't stopped. I walked through my door to mail, a stuffy room, and a nearly-blind dog rushing over to say hello. Tonight, I will go to bed, and when I wake up, it'll be time to get back to work.

This is a reminder that life goes on. Some days will feel frantic, others will feel slow. All of those days will feel like a blur – but I'd like to focus my vision in these last months of 2016. I won't make any sweeping declarations on how I'll do it yet, but we'll see where my brain takes me.