Summer has risen over the horizon and I can feel myself reaching for it, the sun burning my hands. Heat isn’t something I enjoy — it makes you feel sticky and feel like dying — but I love the things that come with it, at least in theory. Most summers, I make promises to myself that I don’t keep, to be productive, to spend time with people, but I end up scrolling through my phone inside most days. This summer, after spending months studying almost non-stop, I have learnt to value the privilege of free time and I want to use it well. I will spend my days sewing and baking and reading and annotating books and writing a journal if I’m alone, or meeting my friends for walks and picnics and watching new shows. I will spend my evenings eating ice cream with my sister and going on long walks with my mother while the sky remains bright and the breeze makes me feel less boiling. I will spend my nights writing secret stories on my phone with the covers off and the fan that does nothing to really quell the heat. I will feel alive.
Summer feels sticky, feels like dying, feels like nostalgia and wasted potential, feels like burning and rotting while brightness blooms around you. But I promise I’ll make it worth something this time. I promise to feel the breeze, feel alive, feel like I’m going to make it somewhere, feel like I’ll birth something new and beautiful out of the mess.
