If You’re Looking For Me This Summer

This summer, search for me in the sun. Travel outside of these walls, away from the air-conditioning and the old ideas I’d built and called limitations, and look for somebody living in color.

You might find me on the water, my body reclined in a kayak, my face stretched into a smile beneath a blanket of light. I might be reading, instead, my eyes dancing with emotion as I make meaning of pages imprinted by somebody else’s soul. You might find me running, my arms and legs shining with sweat, my lungs heaving and my blood burning red against my sternum. I might be laughing with friends, joyful eyes hidden behind the lenses of sunglasses, as we work to figure out the tangles of our twenties.

By night, I’ll relent, you might find me on my couch cushions, legs wrapped up in blanket as I stare into the screen of my laptop, or phone, or the pages of another book. On some nights, you’ll find me running beneath the stars, stretching out my arms as music filters into my ears and through my extremities, feeling both infinitesimal and infinite. Afterwards, you’ll find me lying out in the grass, my chest heaving and my face contorted into a smile.

Search for me on the streets of cities, a bag of books over my shoulder and my eyes wide with possibility. Find me dancing, a body in the motion of freedom, forgetting the performance and resting in myself. Look for me out in the rain, uninhibited by the idea of my walls being washed away, old agonies rinsing from my skin like chalk from the sidewalk.

You won’t find me searching for love where it does not dwell, clenching my fists in wonder at why somebody left. I’m no longer weeping on the floor, every inhale and exhale a deliberate decision, working to heal and find my worthiness amidst all the wreckage. Don’t search for somebody who settles for half-hearted love, who shrinks their spirit in the hopes of being small enough to carry.

Instead, look for a human being in motion, every footstep a thunderclap of color and purpose. Every sunrise a new opportunity to discover meaning, pursue possibility, and build in brand new directions. Every person around me a purposeful choice, someone whose threads expand the tapestry of my own understanding, whose light amplifies my own, whose hands are worth the trust of connection.

This is to be the great summer of myself, of living beyond comfort zones, of finding courage and meaning in moments big and small. Find me there, arms outstretched and fingers spread to the breeze. Search for me outside the margins, away from voices deciding what it is to exist, burning and breathing in the richness of my own being.