I don't really have anything to say about summer.
I do have a lot of thoughts about summer.
So like most people, I'm using the internet as an outlet for producing words without actually saying anything.
Summer Time
Summer memories aren't always good. I've been alive for 34 years. Only a few summers stick out to me. And they were all a pretty darn long time ago, at this point. 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015. Everything outside that was something less than memorable.
But yeah, I remember friends and feelings and music and experiences from all these summers. They're all pretty darn different from each other. There's a buddy of mine from summer 2013 whom I've spent a lot of time with recently. He once claimed that old summer to be his "peak" era as a college kid in his 20s. I have to bring this up, because I was there, and I liked it too. On the downlow: I prefer spring over summer. And it's no coincidence that I'm writing this blogpost on the last day of May, as I feel like spring has officially turned into summer. I had a good spring. So I'm really banking on the change of the season not screwing things up.
Summer 2013 was like a group of friends trying to get through a checklist of all the cliché American summer experiences you're supposed to have while you're still young. It was also really weird. For me.
It's been a remarkable point of discussion with my therapist. Even 8 years after graduating college, I still think of my life in terms of "semesters." I remember each year, and each season, and I tend to divide everything up that way. In college, each semester felt like I was a totally different person. So it's like... I've always considered 2013 to be a great year. Fond memories of all 3 semesters. But my memories of it all come with a thick haze. Summer 2013 seemed to have nothing to do with my life in either spring or fall of that year. But I mean, hey. At least it was fun.
I've only recently discovered an important tie-in as to why college years were so divisive and my post-college years have been sucky: The Fragmented Self. I'll try not to get too deep into this. But I've gone my entire adult life without really having an essence of self that seems connected to a "through line" of character development as life goes on.
Perhaps that's why those other summers stick out to me. They seemed to be developmental or spiritual times in my life, in a rather pivotal way. I don't really think of summer 2015 as a time full of having a bunch of fun with a bunch of friends. But I felt like I was learning stuff. Like, actual edification. I'd dare say that summer kicked off a "though line" within myself. This would eventually fade out when college graduation came around. I once was lost, but now I'm found--Oops. Lost again.
There's been a lot of days recently that remind me of summer 2008. I have no idea why. That was a summer full of having a bunch of fun with a bunch of friends. And I was still a teenager. This is half my life ago. Holy crap.
I absolutely loved being in a local production of The Laramie Project. Me and some dudes went on a backpacking trip in the Sawtooths. I have vivid memories of the Jerome County Fair, for whatever reason. There's a video of me somewhere dancing like a moron in a church parking lot to "Rock Lobster." I was getting grounded a lot for always coming home after midnight. None of these things have anything to do with my current life. But those were some good times, and I don't mind those feelings resurfacing.
Anyways. I'll always consider ages 17-18 as a "through line" in my life. Summer 2009 after my senior year of high school is a time I actually put too high on a pedestal. Not that I think of this time (or any other time of my life) as "perfect." But a lot of internally important stuff ended when that summer ended. Not just my childhood, but this streak of development I didn't know how to hold onto when my life went through a seemingly minor change. This has become a common reoccurrence throughout my adult life. How I define myself has since been chopped into different versions of myself for each semester of my life. Which brings us to summer 2025.
To reference the intro to this blogpost: I don't have much to say, but there's a lot of important thoughts at hand. By all means, I spent much of this blogpost talking about the past. But I've been making an active effort to not think about the past this much. There are plenty of good and bad things happening in my life right now that are starting to feel very real to me. Namely: Life itself. And that thing usually doesn't feel real to me.
To say that "life is real" sounds super obvious. But to actually experience life, and for that to feel real... That's seemed increasingly impossible to me, the older I get. And yeah, I'm 34, and suddenly the realization that life is real has brought me some new senses of joy and pain. Summer has arrived, and there's a lot of intensely bittersweet summer feelings going on right now. It's enough to make a person execute some questionable actions.
I thought I'd write a blogpost about this season where the kids are out of school and the weather's so hot that you only want to be outside when the sun's down. It's a good time be young and a strange time to grow old. And it's literally where we are right now. Summer Time.
