I always had an anticipation for summer, not the actual season itself, but rather the scorching sensation that would ensue for two short months when the earth seemed to be placed beneath a heating lamp. It leads me year after year to wonder why it’s sat on such a pedestal. I will admit that my romanticization of summer has always left me in a state of confusion. 

Summer acts as the catalyst of “change.” As trees shed their withered leaves and blossom again in full technicolor, so do we. Summer is storybook-like; from idly wandering down streets, backed by the melody of an ice cream truck, you await days of daydreams on the beach, pretending to exist in a mermaid cove; it is the season of “happiness.” For three months, when the sun is the center of the universe, we are jolted back into the sandy moments of our youth. 

One of my most vivid memories is the summer before I started sixth grade. As a child, I spent my summers attempting to find solace away from extreme heat and nights full of fireflies dancing through bushes. I spent much of summer running around my decaying apartment complex with a group of children whose names I can’t recall. We spent hours foraging worlds in the dusty center of our apartment buildings, watching the plastic paint melt off the outside walls. I spent hours running up and down the rusting stairs behind a group of children who I hadn’t realized until now I never knew the names of. It was as if new people appeared every day, and even though I could never tell you a single detail about any of their faces. The one thing we had in common was a lackluster summer that we attempted to make magic.

While my friends had their sights set on venturing off to nearby neighborhoods and day trips to Chesapeake Beach, I sought out to accomplish as much as I could before summer ended. Inspired by a colorful film about a middle school-aged red-headed girl determined to have the “most not bummer summer ever,” I made a list. one created with plastic jewels, a rainbow of construction paper, and any sticker I could scrounge up. One sleepless night, I was able to create a long list of adventures I wanted to set out on for the upcoming summer. But by the middle of June, a long list of unfinished accomplishments lay on my wall.

And as the days droned on, I found myself right back in the same room I began summer in. I had written down one goal after another, each one stacked up against the other, but it came crashing down as the school year began. I stared at the list taped idly on the wall with no checked boxes. Finally, my solace came at the end of summer as my family packed into each other’s cars and started for six hours down the road. After an exhausting car ride, two bathroom breaks, and a stop at a small chain restaurant called Cook Out, we finally arrived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. For three short days, I existed in a daydream of sorts. Where smoke rose from grills loaded with burgers, hot dogs, and sausages, and metal cauldrons full of boiling grease where catfish and whiting would take their final swim. At night we ran through the entire house, up the short steps onto the little porch full of rocking chairs and swinging bug zappers. The noise of the zaps followed us through the house, past the small corridors, down the back steps, past the mildew-scented basement, and into a vast yard with towering pine trees.

During adulthood, you’re suddenly tasked with crafting your own summer. While some have the opportunity to run away to Paris and explore the back alleys of European countries that can hardly be pronounced. Others reside at home, scraping up enough money to survive the upcoming semester. As if once the ice has finally melted off the trees and the grass is basking in the warmth of the sun, you can sit and recall your tales of summers past, and all will be right in the world. That anger and sadness have no place in summer, and maybe that is only the case when you are a child; I think that is the only time when your summers are truly your own. For instance, when you are a child, summer stretches on forever, and a majority of it is your own. You could explore your passions without pressure, spend your days between friends, self-discovery, and just about anything that filled your heart’s content. 

However, as you age, experience more complex emotions, and enter the adult world, a subtle realization emerges: your summers are no longer truly yours. You are locked down with work and, in some cases, a crushing schedule. For some who went down the route of college, you may be saving up money for the upcoming semester, planning out the rest of your life, and realizing that you now have to schedule in time for the ones you love. Summers become melancholy. They go by faster. People are trapped between internships, externships, part-time jobs, full-time opportunities, and the hopes of traveling. As an adult, summer becomes a tale shadowed by newfound responsibility and a race to fall. As I’ve learned this year, August comes around all too fast. As an adult, summer loses some of its magic. But I realize the responsibility that adults take on to create their own summer magic. As this summer comes to a close and fall creeps in, I am still left wondering if the accompanying happiness, magic, and warm feelings—both good and bad—of the summer months are overshadowed because it is simply “summer.” But I have come to realize it is a personal responsibility to create the childishness that was a part of those magical summers from my youth. Although there is pressure to appear happy and sun-soaked during summer, there is also the reality that sadness, trouble, and melancholy feelings will always exist. The realities of adulthood will always be there. Summer is a gentle reminder that it’s okay to slow down, to sit still, to have fun, to return to my inner child, and, who knows, maybe even go catch a firefly.