Falling In Love WIth Summer

July 19, 2023

I have never been someone who loved summer. I loved the time off school and I loved that I had time to do what I wanted, but I have never loved the heat and the loneliness.

My parents have been divorced since I was 5 years old, so I don’t really remember what it was like to have everything all in one space. All your family, all your clothes, all your toys, all your favorite books, all your friends…it was harder when my mom got married and moved an hour away from my dad. That meant that time at my dads I would not be able to spend time with my friends from my moms house and vise versa. This made me a lot closer to my siblings, but it put a wedge between me and my friends that could not be removed by any amount of phone calls or letters. My other friends would get closer to each other and I would always be at arms length.

Now, I don’t blame my parents, they were doing the best they could with what they had, but this was a very lonely way to live.

Being that I would spend a week or two at one house and a week or two at another house, this meant that there were weeks on end that I would not see any of my friends while they would hang out without me. I would see their facebook albums about going to the mall together and, even though the mall was close to me at my dads house, they didn’t invite me because they knew it would probably be a no. Or I would ask them to come over for a slumber party and their parents would say no because it was an hour away, and my parent wasn’t willing to have me go over to their homes.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved spending the time with my siblings, but there are holes that siblings cannot fill.

My sister, who I share both my parents with, and I are roughly three years apart, so there are very few years that we would be able to see each other in school, and for most of my upbringing, she and I were the ones that went to the same school. I have siblings that are closer in age, but they went to school near my dads home, which was an hour away from where I went to school, near my moms house. So my siblings couldn’t sit with me at lunch, or help me in gym when I cannot figure out how to not look like a fool with no athletic ability, or sit with me in class, or help me with the homework, or talk about the boy that I like. It became pretty isolating, especially after we moved schools multiple times and my previous friends wanted nothing to do with me anymore.

So, between the heat and the loneliness, summers have never been my cup of tea.

But this year, this year I have had some time off because I am in between jobs and I have found ways to fall in love with summer.

I love to swim, and I love to swim outside. I love the warm sun on my skin and the cool water drowning out all the noises around me. I love the way that the pool feels nostalgic and hopeful, even as an adult.

I love staying up late and the sun is still high in the sky. I love waking up early and catching the sunrise. I love hearing the birds sing and seeing all of the wildlife. I love that everyone feels excited ( and a little cranky because they’re overheated ). I love the anticipation for the autumn to come. I love that I, with the help of my husband, am finding interest in watching soccer.

This summer has made me want to move to a small coastal town and live by a beach so I can soak up as much of the season as possible.

Which has had me really thinking about how I need to better appreciate the season of life I am in.

I have always been someone who really looks forward to the next step, or back at the places I had been and what if I had done this differently or said that thing that I wanted to or what if I had stayed. But I am doing what I can to rewire my brain to start living in the moment and appreciating what I am in right now.

I saw this reel on instagram the other day and it had a voiceover that said “there is at least one dream that you are living” or something along those lines. Something saying that there were all these dreams and aspirations that you had worked toward in the past, and that you are living some of those things you worked for now and man that hit me. I am here complaining about silly little things when I have moved to a place that I have wanted to live for at least a decade. I have the sweetest puppy and I have dreamed about a small, fluffy, companion for years and years. And I am married to the young man that I pined over for 15 years. I dreamed of a life like this for forever, and yet I am here thinking about the things that aren’t going my way.

So this year, I am doing my best to fall in love with every season. All of my summers, my autumns, my winters ( this one is going to take a lot of work ) and my springs. My unemployed, my working a crappy job and my working my dream job. My waiting, my working and my actions.

Wish me luck.