Snap out of it. The last bell has rung. You’re flung across stage. You step outside into the heat and stillness of silence and night. You’ve got a paper in one hand and emptiness in the other. For some, a pang fills your heart as this is it, nervousness and no idea what’s coming. Others feel that drop in their body as freedom to breathe and come alive like the crackling bonfire. You graduated, class of 2017, and here we are almost at the end of summer.

“The summer in-between…” seems like a shove into reality, unlike moving from elementary to middle school, as a foggy dream, or middle to high school. This is it. The world is waiting for you to step off and dip your feet in.

The summer in-between is filled with adventures with friends, family, laughter, love, mischief. Morning walks in the rain and late night talks under the stars and street lamps. Giggles bubbling into soft drinks and hollering thrown into the slippery breeze.

The summer in-between is filled with dreaming. Hope in between sun-kissed tan lines and clear water seeing who you could be, what can be found, and where you’ll end up. It’s filled with a release of cares form past expectations and woes of what others think.

The summer in-between wraps up the story of many childish things that cut off at 18.

Wait, “the summer in-between” what? Going back to 一

Yet the pang comes back again during a hot July evening as I watch another sunset disappear into thought.

The clock is ticking, tock...tick...tock… as you subconsciously count down the days that used to be far away. You’re not going back to high school.

The summer in-between collects everything into a mindful scrapbook, opens new opportunities to learn.

The summer in-between shows who’s worth fighting for.

I’m excited to leave but scared to start. I’m scared to start at my own finish line without my friends near me.

The summer in-between high school and university, or just the rest of our lives, is bittersweet as we take the last bite of youth, swallowing to breathe in evolution and the next steps for forever.

The summer in-between is filled with normality until a realization occurs as empty boxes seem to fill the doorway stuffed in the corners with paranoia.

Tick...tock...tick...tock…

A countdown to a new life.

Some see a bomb exploding with shrapnel of fear and to others confetti of a new year.

Thoughts of payments, forms, classes, dorms, roommates, details…

What happened to the past?

I blinked. I look into a mirror and, some days, see a woman. Other days I still see the timid young girl who wouldn’t open her mouth for a smile.

Graduation night ended with me returning home and eating breakfast in the middle of the night with my family. Upon entering the bathroom I took off my makeup and cleaned myself up, looking into a mirror.

Behind all the fancy clothing and makeup and freshly cut hair and painted nails, it’s all unbrushed and pimply and messy...but, oh, so full of love. All I have are my words, my compassion, my strength, my fears, and my conviction. I graduated high school and I’m naked again for a new start to be written all over my clean skin.

However, I want to take things with me that don’t include my new bed sheets or a laptop or shoes. I want there to be faded sharpie writing of the past still seen on my skin. The summer in-between feels like the last with the buzz of work and thinking about more than just school supplies and old drama. I want to take a backpack full of memories, reminders that I’m venturing off from a year that I don’t want to fully let go, people I don’t want to let go. Finding the ones you could've needed years ago, occurring in a finite space, only to be busy with growing up outside those lines and wishing it’s a few years later to escape the difficult good-byes.

The numbness is too easy to pack for many. It fits in my pocket and weighs more than the car I’m leaving in. Let’s leave it behind and just forget about that. But it sticks to the insides like forgotten gum melted into the seams and hardened out with every wash of optimism and drying of reality.

Only the hug in your heart reminds you that exciting things are coming. More laughter, adventure, and love. A sigh of relief from tedious years of routine to decisions all your own. As love for others hinders you from jumping in, remind yourself that you all can hold hands and dive in together.

I can’t help but look into a mirror most days and see someone I have yet to meet. That’s what drives me to go and figure it out, just like everyone else without a second thought.