The summer before you leave for college will be the best and the worst summer ever. I don’t say worst because you’ve been working half the summer or your boyfriend broke up with you I mean the worst because everything good is ending. Every single thing you’ve known up to this point is transforming into the “real world.” The world that doesn’t tuck you in at night or makes you lasagna on Mondays. The world that isn’t so kind when it comes to being a good friend. The world that doesn’t really care what your brothers’ names are or what your favorite movie is.
But this time is the best because it’s like a slow motion goodbye. Of course you’ll see your family again, but you will never be back in high school, on the volleyball team or at a Friday night football game ever again. The point is that time is moving quicker than I would like it to and I only have less than a month to say goodbye to my best friend who’s moving seven hours away. The future is so distant yet approaching so fast and what a confusing state that is to be in.
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Lately I’ve been fixed upon the future. The time that is coming up 200 miles per hour but somehow also in slow motion.
For example, I know that one day I’ll be sitting at the kitchen table across from my 18-year-old granddaughter. I’ll be telling her of the times where I felt the happiest, and the lowest. I’ll be telling her of the days I felt like I was on top of the world, how I got there and who helped put me there. I will tell her about people, and how they change. I’ll tell her how a best friend breakup will wreak her entire world. I’ll explain that sometimes all you have is your faith. I’ll describe how shaky a foundation is if it’s built off somebody else’s approval. I’ll tell her that being authentically beautiful is the realest beauty there is.
I know all of this is going to happen, (or at least I hope). But it just hasn’t yet and thinking about something that hasn’t happened but will happen is completely mind blowing.
Sometimes I stay up late thinking about the amount of love I have in my life. I think about the best people I’ve met and the worst. I imagine meeting the love of my life and I always pray it’s something great. But the uncertainty of the future is scary. It’s scary to be 18 years old in a world you’re not even sure if you can handle yet.
The summer before you go to college for the first time is like the night before a big event. You prepare, imagine and hope for what tomorrow might bring. You aren’t certain what it will be but you’re praying it will be something important. You hope that somehow you’ll find the best career, friends and life. But the hard part of it all is it isn’t you finding it, it’s you making it yourself. Nobody can possibly control how the rest of your life turns out from this point forward. Suddenly the possibility of you dying from a drug overdose or being the president of the United States is all in your hands and that's terrifying. It’s all up to you now and maybe that’s why it’s truly the best and the worst summer ever.
So here's to the rest of the best summer of my life; I'll miss you. I'll miss talking about the future before it's here, I'll miss when my best friend was walking distance away, and most of all I'll miss being 18. I don't want to be any older or younger than I am at this point right now. I'll miss shopping for my new room in college, freshman camp and the unfamiliarity of living on my own. I'll miss my hometown homies and picking my brother up from elementary.
But here comes the newness of it all. A new town, new people and new experiences. This is why this summer has got to be the best and the worst summer of my life.
