The Story

My Thoughts on Summer

Sep. 1, 2011 | By Michelle Repper, DSJ Staff Columnist>

Summer is winding down, and yet again I’m left speechless. I cannot believe that it left me so soon after getting intimate with me. Will it call? I hope it calls…It definitely won’t call. It’s a flighty bastard (tell all your friends). Oh sure, promises of sleeping in, hanging out with friends, and making piles of money all seem glorious and heavenly when you’re a sleep-deprived, dirt-poor, hermit scraping out your last paper on the precipice of finals week, praying to God that you won’t snap… or maybe praying that you will… maybe snap a limb… that’ll get you out of an exam… right? Probably not. Then summer finally calls and you’re so glad to get away from the abusive relationship that is college that you jump! You’ve been romanticizing it for months. You let it break up with you last year, when it got transferred, only after it promised that it would come back for you. And as the school year wound down, as you stabbed yourself with sharpened pencils to maintain consciousness, you thanked god it had texted you nonchalantly, telling you that it may be in town for a couple of months, if you wanted to get coffee or something. You’d been aching for warmth and good food and good god a nice clean bed. You drooled a little bit… on multiple occasions. You didn’t want to seem too needy, but damn it you were desperate!

Yet here we are. Summer is getting ready to leave once again, and let’s be honest- it was a disappointment. Only half of your friends came back this summer- the rest were studying abroad, working out-of-state internships-you know, being more successful than you (and letting you know it). The other half of your friends might as well be gone. Everyone is working a 9-5 (or worse) and the small amount of free time they are allotted is used for glorified spacing out (aka TV)- they are way too exhausted to hang out or they are trying to get some laundry done, buy some groceries, be real humans/pseudo-adults. Everyone texts around and facebooks each other about hanging out, and how long has it been? and I miss you, and WHERE ARE YOU?!?!, but there’s no response or a half-hearted one, and schedules never line up, and �"my family never sees me.”

Summer is a slutty tease. All of the things you wanted to do during the school year that you were too tired or too busy to get to were only put off in good conscience because you promised yourself they would get done in summer. HA! haha. ha. How naive. How juvenile. What wishful thinking. You sophomore! Of course you don’t have time! You have a job! You have to eat! You have to look a little more put together than you do during the school year, because it’s summer, and let’s face it- people only put up with you wearing pajamas 90% of the time if they know you’re getting less than 4 hours of sleep a night. So now you’ve become this person. This drone. This disgusting, unfulfilled number that sits at a desk and works, and can’t even say- �"This isn’t who I actually am- I have a hobby on the side”-because you don’t. You can’t say that you’re good at something if you never do it. You can’t call yourself a certain person when the whispers of your actions get louder and louder until they overwhelm your voice just to pat you on the shoulder to tell you that you are in fact someone else.

Summer is a reminder that time is passing. A reminder of what summers used to be, and the sham that summers have become (how can it even still call itself �"summer”!?). You were never disappointed by summers. They would last for an eternity, and you could do whatever you could think of. I’ve caught myself more than once wishing that I could transport some of my work into the past, so I wouldn’t be so busy all the time. I think- �"Wow, I was so unproductive. I should have been getting ahead. I should have been using my time constructively.” Then I pause and remember that those moments of �"laziness” are perhaps the only truly calm memories I have. I would sit around and just think- I didn’t have to worry, I didn’t have to be anywhere. I could just allow myself to mature and become a better person. I could play with the fireflies and make lemonade. I could jump in the pool and just splash around. No one would expect me to swim laps. No one would expect me to carefully ration out every single moment I had. I could just play. I could beg my mom for just 1 dollar, please just 1! to get a big fat piece of candy, because I’ve been good this week! I promise I won’t ask again (yes I will) and then scurry into a corner to have a moment of pure joy. What a waste of money and calories and fat. It’s truly sad that those children are fooled by flashy wrappers and cartoon commercials. What disgusting corporation produced this crap? And what on earth are those parents thinking?! -Things have changed, and only summer elucidates the extent to which they have.

Summer is a sneaky thief. It steals wishful thinking and fantasies, and only leaves you cold harsh reality. It steals the warm energetic people you used to know and leaves you with chilled shadows. These used to be my friends. These were the people that would inspire me and made me feel that anything was possible. They used to have a fire that drove me to be a better person. Now I can only find a spark every now and then. I see these people fettered into jobs and working toward careers that would stamp out any glowing embers they may have left, and I begin to wonder how many adults used to be just like us. How many adults were interesting and passionate and pushed for change and improvement? How many have been broken and forced to comply with the world? Left only to push for security- to give up any hope for change and improvement in exchange for the possibility of routine, because they’ve worked their entire lives for a routine, and how dare a dumb kid try to take that away from them.

So I guess I really hate change. I guess I am turning into one of those adult things. BUT I DON’T HATE CHANGE. I just hate change for the worst, and I suppose becoming an adult is realizing that 99% of changes will lean in the negative direction. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic. I honestly wish I could believe in that 1%. I wish I could think that maybe the things I care about could be that 1%, and that they’re worth fighting for. But I can’t, not anymore. Not after a precious treasure like summer could betray me this way and become part of the 99%. Not anymore.

I wish I could break up with summer. Freeze time, before things got any worse. I wish I could resist its promises, and apologies. I wish I could be strong. But the idea of summer is too sweet, and that’s what I’m in love with. I love the idea that everyone is free and home and excited to see each other. I love the thought of intellectual conversations under the moon, and dancing and laughing harder than I’ve ever laughed in my life over a story about an excessive amount of juice. I love the thought of closing my eyes and letting the shivers run down my back as I savor a moment of pure happiness surrounded by people that love me. I love the memory, and though times are changing, I won’t ever let that go, but because times are changing I will resent what it has become.

Michelle Repper is a staff columnist for the DSJ. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the entire staff.