The End of Summer

Day 20: The End of Summer

The days grow longer, the scent of summer grows near, school is finally out, and instead of being there, I am finally out here.

The freedom to choose how each day will be spent. The freedom to sleep in, stay out late, and play silly games on the pavement.

The longest summer of my life was learning how to ride a bike. I never learned the secret behind it, until I let go of my fear of falling, and that last drift downhill was dreamlike.

Then summer ended, and so did my middle school days. Those friends who committed ourselves to each other, said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I never did get to ride around the neighborhood with them.

Every summer onwards I lost more and more in life. The freedom to be free, to do whatever I whatever I wanted and pleased, was replaced with my contract to the material world and all its endless needs.

It could have been worse. I could have been outside, sweating my heart out to barely break a dollar. Instead I stayed inside in my nicest dress clothes, listening to the constant hum of the air conditioning and watching the clock slowly tick by. I could feel my heart racing against the flow of the hours, the passing of the minutes, the crawling of the seconds, wondering if what I was doing was really worth it. It was totally worth it, I would tell myself. I finally have a car, I can pay to eat out, I can go wherever the wind takes me. I just have to be back in time for work tomorrow.

Summer ended, and began anew and the single-floor bank turned into a sprawling campus. I experienced what it was like to live on my own away from my parents. Through grilled cheeses, terribly made pancakes, and an endless amount of defrosted dinosaur nuggets, my roommates and I survived, developed unbreakable bonds, and bid our farewells once more. One of my friends on campus told me he wished this moment could last forever. I told him that it has to end now, while we it is still at an all-time high. Nothing like this moment could last forever.

Summer ended, and began anew, and the sprawling campus turned into a high-rise corporate estate. The endlessly windowed building reflected the sky and pierced the heavens. It demanded to be seen as it towered above all its neighbors, and I was finally ready to begin the rest of my life. I put on my nicest dress clothes, walked through the revolving glass doors, and repeated the cycle everyday for the rest of my life. I dreamed of the days of old when life was so much simpler, where learning how to ride a bike was absolutely, unconditionally, the most important task of the day. I gazed out the window, resting on my arm and sighed, watching the clouds endlessly cross the sky as I wished I could be out there with them too. There were no more summers after this, as this was the last stop in my journey.

Summer ended, and began anew, and the world held its breath. A pandemic raged across the globe, and turned everything normal inside out, and put all outside people in.

Fearing for the unknown, I canceled my lease and returned home. I felt like a coward for running away from the chance to brave something new, but there were too many uncertainties in that moment when it all became real, and I had too much I wanted to do before being forced to face the true end of my journey. Things that I would eventually start tomorrow.

As this summer draws to an end, I have braved the unknowns of working freely from wherever I wanted, starting tomorrow’s things today, and caught a glimpse of the person I could be if I let all the fears that held me back on the wayside. It reminded me of those middle school days, where every day lasted forever, and every day had meaning. Today was the last day my family would spend together for quite a while. I would move out once more, and both my sisters would move out back to college. My dad silently gave his approval while obviously failing to hide his worries, while my mom pleaded with all of us to stay, saying that we needed to stay together as we don’t know what’s going to happen next.

But that’s just the thing, we will NEVER know what’s going to happen next. My siblings and I have quarreled over nonsensical problems, broken bread over the cheapest fast-food, and slowly prepared ourselves for the end of summer, and our time at home. We all had something we wanted to take the next step towards, and we couldn’t do it living in fear under our parent’s protection forever. As the sun began to set and the whitest clouds became the brightest gold, a wind blew over us in that in that street canvased with masks and hand sanitizer, richer and more fulfilling than any wind I had ever felt since I was in middle school. The winds of fortune, the winds of change, the winds pushing us to a new tomorrow.

Summer ended, and a new chapter in our lives would begin.

@homeroom11 @dragon