Although I’ve been attending a landlocked school for the past few years, this is the first summer I didn’t spend in my small beach-front hometown in Connecticut. I love where I am right now, but I always get a little nostalgic for the summers on Long Island Sound, and I still find myself cringing about the five-hour drive to the beach. I've come to realize that growing up in a beach town often makes you sound like a champion humble bragger, but hey, it's a way of life.
1. Long trips to the ocean are a completely foreign concept to you. What do you mean it’s "only two hours away”? Try two minutes away, and you don’t even have to put shoes on.
2. There’s not really a whole lot to do, other than go to the beach. Pretty much any kind of social gathering takes place near the beach or on the beach.
3. You spent your childhood picking snails off rocks, flinging seaweed at your siblings, and avoiding the pink jellyfish at all costs.
4. You’re used to finding sand EVERYWHERE. Shoes, house, car, bed, purse, you name it.
5. You probably worked at some kind of beachfront business, which meant dealing with all the summer people and their annoying children. Even better, you went home smelling like tarter sauce and French fries every night.
6. Everybody has at least one friend with a sailboat/kayak/motor boat/jet ski/paddle board that they shamelessly take advantage of all summer long. “No, like, I actually want to see you, but can we go out on the boat?”
7. You've nearly ended up in the emergency room on various occasions, including when you tried to skim board, learned to surf, swam in a hurricane, and got pounded by rogue waves in the impact zone a few too many times.
8. You practically live off a delicious/disgusting combo of ice cream and heavily fried seafood. Those who have grown up in New England learn to appreciate clam fritters, real chowder, and the nuanced art that is the lobster roll.
9. You don’t really wear shoes (or pants) anywhere, because when it’s warm outside, it’s acceptable to do that in pretty much any beach town. Ditto for large towels artfully wrapped around you while you’re ordering your soft serve with rainbow sprinkles.
10. Showering becomes a much less frequent activity because you’re swimming so often. Which is kind of like bathing, right? Sort of.
11. Long walks, first dates, important conversations, goodbyes, reunions—some of the most significant and nostalgic moments in your life have taken place at the beach. There's also nothing more therapeutic than a few hours spent watching the waves and contemplating life.
12. You hate summer because the aforementioned summer people come flocking in from all over to enjoy the beautiful weather and waves. You’re peeved because, if they didn’t brave the freezing winter months and that hurricane two weeks ago, they don’t really deserve to be here.
13. You love summer because it means that you have the ocean practically in your backyard, and three months of kayaking, boating, paddle boarding, and falling asleep on the beach are ahead of you.
14. This quote. “I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes, and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came.” – John F. Kennedy
