Although I long for chilly days, my fake-hipster army jacket, and not sweating onto the chair at the eyebrow-waxing salon, I always miss the summer when it goes. As the sun fades from the sky a bit earlier each night and less familiar faces line the streets, I get the creeping sensation that summer is coming to a close. It is an emotion that I have dealt with for the past 15 years; yet, it never seems to get any easier.
This summer was filled with car trips, my first internship experience, an extremely boring summer course, and sitting around, sharing ideas and memories with my closest friends. My summers usually look the same from a distance, but the details reveal the uniqueness that is brought on by the year’s experiences. This year, I broke out of my shell and talked to whomever I got the chance to. I joined a few clubs, fell in love with boys that didn’t know my name, and learned to let go of the things that I couldn’t change. It was a year of growing up and a year of choosing; choosing my life and my friends and whether or not I wanted to be happy.
I got to reap the benefits of those choices this summer. I went to Florida and spent my days relaxing on the beach with zero stress of what I might face when I returned home. I got a new job that I absolutely hated, and chose to leave it because life’s too damn short to smell like frozen yogurt. I said yes to a spontaneous road trip to the One Tree Hill convention in North Carolina. I got a tattoo, saw Chad Michael Murray, drove really fast, and ate a lot of really bad pizza. I was a nanny for 6-year-old twins, who tested my patience, but showed me how important it is to love your siblings. I started writing professionally and got to see my work published in a newspaper. I went to New Hampshire and ate seafood chowder for every single meal and giggled my way through a historic landscape. I learned that no one knows what the hell they’re doing and I should probably stop trying to figure it out by midnight.
Even though I’m dreading going back to school, I am going to be a Junior in college by this time next week. I hope that in summer 2017, I look back on my Junior year with the same nostalgic, but happy, feeling I have while writing this article. I hope to continue to talk to whoever comes my way, say yes to spontaneous trips, take the days as they come, and stop being so worried. I want to look back and see that I took chances, read a lot of books, and just lived my life. With that being said, I can’t wait to see what this year brings. I won’t know until I walk into Intro to Spanish at 7am on Wednesday, though. Wish me luck. I think it’s going to be great.
