Summer - as shown to us in various and vaguely shaming ads for products that represent the best summer has to offer (bikinis, Coke, cars, literally anything else) - is a time for being constantly surrounded by thin, attractive, young people at beach parties with good music and instagram worthy moments (whatever that actually means in real life, aren't we all just repeating the media?). Summer is like that sometimes for some people. Congratulations you people who have managed to achieve this. Maybe invite me to wherever this seemingly manufactured fun is all happening?
I don't mean to sound like a bitter old woman, unfortunately this just happens naturally for me. I promise I don't actually sit in my house grumbling and sweating all day like the true Boca Raton resident I am. This summer has actually been fairly busy with my internship and my pushing myself to socialize more often. Even with my internship and the times I've spent hanging out with friends and family (here's the kicker!) I still feel lonely. Much like the pristine waters you might dive into off of your two story yacht on a beautiful July afternoon, I am incredibly and impossibly blue. (Disgusting sentence, I know. I just wanted to make fun of yacht owners, no offense if any of you are yacht owners.)
Maybe naively, I went into this summer hoping it would be restorative, a time for growth and adventure. This past semester at school was like running an emotional and intellectual marathon, except the marathon is twice as long and it's through pools of mud up to your knees. Everyone has such high expectations for summer. I have always had impossibly high expectations for everything, especially summer. Maybe I feel weird because this is my first summer at home and not at Interlochen Center for the Arts (shameless plug: best place on the planet go there! Go now! They aren't even paying me to say this!). Maybe I feel weird because being home makes me feel like I'm in high school again a little bit. Maybe I miss Oberlin more than I thought. Maybe I feel weird because no matter what I do, it all feels fleeting. Excitement is temporary, companionship is temporary, all the "good times" that I'm supposed to have - that I am trying to have - are temporary too.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH okay I'm tired of listening to myself complain too. Forget it. Summer is just more time that we exist in. We're pressured by the media (damn the media!) and ourselves and whoever else to be unrealistically happy during the summer. We're basically programmed to ENJOY SUMMER OR ELSE. But I'm really tired of feeling pressured to enjoy myself at any time of the year. My anxiety doesn't go away over the summer. Okay, hello anxiety can I get you a smoothie? My loneliness doesn't go away over the summer. Alright, sup loneliness make sure that's SPF 50 or above because we can't get burnt again. Some days are going to be great, some days are going to be terrible. Some days I'm going to go out and actually enjoy myself knowing fully well that the next day I might feel empty again. Even if I am on vacation, my problems work 24/7 for life. Summer, as much as I love Summer, as much as I pour all of my hopes and expectations in to summer, and as much as Summer is often a great time for so many things in my life, each day of Summer is just another day to take as it comes. What a depressing note to end on, I'm so sorry. Can I offer you half a coconut being used as a container for a mysterious beverage?
