Summer Diaries

Since I can remember, Summer somehow always changes my life. “Summer is meant for loving and leaving” and making mistakes, and realizing things, and losing yourself and questioning everything. I don’t know if it’s because of the transitory nature of the season, or the excessive heat that makes people mad but chaos is rampant from June to September. I’m always expecting summer sweetness; lace skirts, salty skin, freckles, BBQ’S, laughter, etc. but am mostly met with soul crushing lust, misinterpreted connections, financial burden, and slow afternoons of solitude.

The first Summer that changed my life was when I was in Elementary School. It was one of my last glimpses of purity and innocence before the beginning of teenage corruption began. It was filled with everything that makes up a true Summer; walking to get big ice cream cones, playing in the sprinklers in the front yard, pruned fingers from hours in the pool, cuts and bruises from climbing the big trees in the park, collecting letters from summer school crushes, and sparkly pink painted toe nails. Everything felt romantic that summer. Even my permanently water clogged right ear and the sweaty top sheet that would bundle at my feet every night because we never had air conditioning. The most romantic memory was a lake trip I went on with my best friend at the time. We drove to up to Yosemite and it was one of the first times I saw trees that big and grass so green. It smelled of campfire smoke and pine and we would spend hours playing mermaids in the lake. We sang songs during the winding drives into town and walked around the campsite flirting with cute boys our age. I remember how tan and warm my skin felt and how the smell of smoke lingered on my clothes days after I got back. I remember being scared of bears and the fish in the lake but in an excited way. I remember how comforted I felt looking up at the big trees and thinking about how long it took them to grow that big. I remember getting home and starting homework for the new school year; heartbreak. I had one last ice cream cone before school started, mint chocolate chip, and I let it drip luxuriously on my fingers before licking it off.

Once I was in Middle School, the Summer chaos commenced. I started hanging out with questionable, but popular, girls and got sucked into the swirling world of pre teen fun. When I wasn’t day dreaming in summer school, I was out galavanting and discovering the thrills of boys, cigarettes, and rule breaking. I got into my first real bouts of trouble that summer, sneaking out became my favorite past time and I got exceptionally good at it. There was romantic moments as well; a boy who had a crush on me brought me a puppy to my door step and I had my first real kiss. I spent evenings drawing and listening to old rock albums from my Dad’s collection, hardly eating and hiding weed in a stuffed bear figure I had on my bed. My friends and I would go to our favorite local burger place and share plates of chili cheese fries dipped in ranch and cherry cokes. I discovered fishnet tights, mini skirts, and sad music that summer and would listen to Radiohead on repeat while walking to the train. I wore big shoes, tiny dresses, my eyeliner got darker and so did my drawings in my journal. It was also the summer I got diagnosed with anxiety and depressive disorder.

The next memorable summer I had was in 2016. I had just graduated High School, I had a job working at a smoothie bar and my parents went to Europe for 3 weeks. It was an ideal set up for a Summer being freshly 18. I remember how particularly warm it was that year and how good the lingering heat felt as it dipped into the late hours of the evening. The heat was a catalyst for adventure, for partying, for lust and chaos. I spent many evenings with new friends watching them play aimlessly on guitar while beer bottles piled on the tables. We would squish 8 of us into my black Toyota Camry chasing parties across Los Angeles, blasting music and hanging out of the windows. I had crushes on everyone, everything was sexy, and I never wanted it to end. Towards late August that Summer, I found myself in an entanglement with one of the new neighbors; he was tan, green eyed, and drove an old truck like something out of a bad rom com . He would pick me up and we’d listen to Cuban music while driving through town, his free hand enveloped in mine. Summer ended, he went back to school and I went back to work, leaving me with nothing but crippling nostalgia and a half empty pack of Marlboro Reds that I kept untouched for months after.

Another favorite Summer of mine was only a few years ago. It was a summer of friendship, adventure, and rock n roll. I had just moved into an apartment with my best friends at the time and one of them was dating a guy who was in a small, but upcoming, rock band. We spent days at the “band house”, a large mansion that inhabited the band members where they threw pool parties, shows, and where we spent afternoons chain smoking and laying in the sun. That was the epicenter of the summer. The drummer’s dog would circle our feet, people would come in go, and we’d play pool and listen to band practice into the late evenings. I had crushes, and a debilitating fling with a boy who rode motorcycles and had tattoo sleeves. Everything felt intense and heavy, just like the music we danced to at The Roxy and Madame Siam. Our weekends were spent at local rock shows, dive bars, or at the beach. I loved wearing mini dresses and boots and I spent many days on the back of a dirt bike, my hair whipping around my face. My relationships came to an end just like summer did, leaving only the lingering scent of cigarette smoke in my hair.