Late afternoon has always been my favorite time of day. There is something special about the time right before the sun sets -- that golden hour of afternoon -- when the day's work is over and only a few hours are left before it's time to retire for the night. What's done is done. Indelibly carved into stone. Time you'll never get back. All that's left is to reflect, regroup, and rest before the next day starts and back into the fray you’re tossed all over again. If you're lucky and things are clear enough, at just that moment, nature explodes into ever-changing color just before everything turns to black. 

Chasing sunsets and trying to take pictures that do them justice is one of my favorite things to do. Just as amazing as their beauty is the way the same daily event, the same mixture of clouds and sun and atmosphere, can paint a vastly different canvas every time. 

Funnily enough, I seem to find myself reenacting that event repeatedly in my life. Picking up, heading out somewhere entirely new, only to see things end in colorful explosions stamped in my brain just before everything turns black and I must figure out what to do in the dark before starting it all over again. I've done this so many times. Signs in my life are rarely subtle. Usually when it’s time to move, things on all fronts – sometimes even my heart – shatter into a million pieces. There’s nothing left to do but sweep up what you can salvage of the wreckage and move on. Sometimes the picture at the end is beautiful, a colorful remnant of what that time gave me: the people, the places, the memories. I know when I leave that things will never be the same. I may never see some of those people or places again.  People mean well, but despite best intentions once you’re out of sight, you’re usually out of mind, save for the brief texts a few times a year inquiring into each other’s well-being or the occasional social media interaction. The deep friendships and once close connections are gone. I’ve gotten used to that idea, even if it does hurt every time. I’ve chosen to look at this inevitable shift as an adventure, forgetting things that were behind and pressing toward those things ahead. Sunsets not only broadcast the end of a day; they announce that a new day is going to begin soon. 

And sunrises can be just as beautiful as sunsets.