I Hate Summer

By

I take back everything good I ever said about summer. It’s the pits. Everything is too hot, time moves too fast, you spend every waking moment feeling physically uncomfortable. I never thought I would say this, but is it fall yet?

I know that part of the reason why I no longer like summer is because I’m not in school anymore. Before this, I spent the months of June, July, and August usually toiling away at some internship and spending endless hours drinking boxed wine on my friend’s porch. Summer felt like a true vacation, a real break from the daily grind, and that’s what made it so magical. We felt like we had earned this time. Everything we had done up until this point was for these three golden months of freedom. People became drunk off time, less inhibited and willing to do whatever. Summer had this mystical witchy vibe to it. It made everyone a little nuts but in the best way possible.

Since getting a full-time job, summer feels as if it has been sterilized, like someone chopped its balls off. Now it just feels like three months of your life when the weather is super hot and you’re sweating from places you didn’t think were possible, and oh my god, can someone please get you a water?! It becomes annoying. Instead of being the friend you’ve missed for the past nine months, it becomes a terrorizing bugaboo and a painful reminder that you’re growing up. You’re not allowed to have summer anymore. NO SUMMER FOR YOU, YOU 24-YEAR-OLD!

This is what summer used to mean: Wake up at 11 in the morning and call your friends. “Where are you? Come over?” and then they would. They would ride their bikes wearing shorts and a tank top and you would sit there in the heat deciding what to do next. No one would ever know but eventually someone would decide to get beers and go swimming so you would. You would live in your bathing suits and swim in cold water and get medium drunk off of some drinks. The day would be unremarkable, just like any other, but it would be the best Groundhog’s Day possible. Lazy summer haze over and over.

When the sun would go down, you’d change and maybe eat some fish tacos or maybe have your other friends come over. Hopefully there would be a party going on that night. Parties in the summer were always great because everyone would practically be naked and be down to hook up. People would get passed around like summer fruit and no one seemed to mind. It was understood that because it was summer, people were allowed to behave differently. There was a casualness to those months that never spilled over into the other seasons. Summer was our time to bend the rules and play with the social norms.

If there wasn’t a party, you could go on a night drive with your friends. The air would be thick with humidity and your bodies would be lumped together in the backseat but it was fun because you could listen to good music and maybe see a ghost. You could stick your feet out the window and drive fast or kiss someone under a blanket and drive to a beach and have a bonfire. You could do all of these things because you were allowed to. You were expected to.

Even if you tried to do that again, even if all of your friends took off work and you spent the day recreating past summers, it wouldn’t work. Too much has changed. Real life would be hanging over you like a dark cloud and you’d just be reminded of how much things have changed and how you can never get certain things back.

I don’t mind things changing. I really really don’t. I just wanted to keep summer the way it was. Take it all away from me but please don’t take summer. Oops, too bad. you already took it. Hate you, summer.

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