The Summer I Almost Missed
Summer has arrived and instead of feeling light, I feel a little heavy. There is this quiet pressure that builds behind the scenes, like a voice whispering that I am not doing enough. Not making enough memories. Not being spontaneous or golden or wild in the way I imagine summer should feel. I do not think I am an anxious person, not in the textbook way. But I hate the idea that something fun is happening without me. I hate the kind of silence that follows when everyone else was somewhere I was not.
Last weekend, there was a party. The kind that looks like a music video after dark. I did not go. I chose family dinner instead. We ordered too much food, the lighting was soft, and for a moment, it felt like the right kind of quiet. But then morning came. And Instagram opened like a trap. Blurry pictures. Flash-lit smiles. Outfits that looked effortlessly good. Everyone seemed like they were glowing. I stared at their posts for too long. Something sank inside me. Am I missing something? Am I missing everything?
And then there is college. The slow burn stress of trying to be good enough for a place I have not even seen yet. I had a meeting yesterday morning at 9:30. It lived in my dreams before it lived in my calendar. Three different versions of it, each one me messing it up. Late. Flustered. Saying the wrong thing. I woke up already exhausted. I thought summer was supposed to feel easy. Why does it feel like a countdown I never agreed to?
Sometimes I think the modern world broke teenagers. Maybe not all the way, but just enough. Enough to keep us tired. Enough to make everything feel performative. Even fun starts to feel like a job. Post about it. Keep up with it. Look like you are loving every second of it. Somewhere along the way, rest became rebellion. Stillness became strange.
I think about Thoreau more than I would like to admit. His little cabin in the woods. His handwritten pages. His walks without maps. Sometimes I imagine switching places with him. Trading it all, the phone, the feed, the pressure, for a lake and a stack of books and a bed that creaks in the wind.
Maybe this summer, I try something different. Maybe I disappear a little. Take up space in the real world and leave the digital one alone for a while. Maybe I miss the gossip and forget to answer texts and stop watching the highlight reels. Maybe I let college sit in the background. Maybe I just breathe. Read. Make something with my hands. Listen to songs all the way through.
Maybe I finally give myself permission to rest.
Maybe that is the most radical thing I could do.
