Summer officially arrived yesterday.

Of course, if you judge by the ninety-degree temperatures we’ve been having, it’s been here since May.

Each day forward, we will head to bed later as dawn comes earlier, long days, late sunsets, and short nights begin.

Yesterday, the sun reached its highest point, signaling the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, south of the equator, winter begins.

The summer solstice has been around since the world began. Ancient cultures recognized that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted regularly throughout the year.

Stonehenge stands as a testament to their knowledge. The summer solstice sun rises directly above the heel stone at Stonehenge.

Psychologists have long suspected a link between our level of happiness and the amount of sunlight in the day.

Studies show that what truly mattered was not the absolute amount of daylight but the relative change in that daylight. Or was the day longer or shorter than the day that came before?

When the change in daylight was positive, as the summer solstice approached, people reported significantly greater positive effects than when the change was negative, i.e., approaching the winter solstice, when days are short and dark. No surprise there!

Not only was yesterday the longest day of the year, but it was also Father’s Day. We had the longest day of the year to celebrate the dads, grandfathers, and father figures who shape our lives with strength, love, and quiet dedication,

That won’t happen again until 2037. Father’s Day date changes because the holiday is anchored to a weekday rule, not a calendar number: the third Sunday in June, every year, without exception. Same as Mother’s Day.

Now that summer is officially here, it will last 93 long days, 15 hours, and 40 minutes and end on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, at 8:05 PM EDT.

Some are happy.

Some of us, not so much.