For the past few years, every summer the same quote has lived semi-permanently in my mind: “You still crave lemonade, but the taste doesn’t satisfy you as much as it used to. You still crave summer, but sometimes you mean summer, five years ago.” Alida Nugent wrote that in her book of essays, You Don’t Have to Like Me.
Growing up, summer was always synonymous with family to me. I grew up going on vacations with my extended family at least once in each summer. They’re some of my fondest memories: the cousins running around squabbling, our parents sending us to whatever kids’ program they’d found. Grandma (Mimi) sitting on someone’s front porch, always with a book in hand. Grandpa (Papa) chasing us in the pool.
Although we didn’t know it at the time, my family went on our last summer family vacation last year. We went, as we did long before any of the cousins could drive or knew what Pre-Calculus was, to a ranch.
But the ranch we’d frequented as kids wasn’t around anymore. The youngest cousin was speaking full sentences, already half-way through middle school. The eldest had just graduated high school. I realized, all at once, that we’d grown up. The childhoods we’d spent together were over, and we were savoring the last few drops of it.
This summer led into my senior year. Gone were the days of fantasizing about what high school would be like with the gaggle of girls I’ surrounded myself with throughout our adolescence. It was already nearly over, and I was spending summer working on my college applications. I was still craving summer, but, as Alida Nugent wrote, I was hoping for the summer before I started middle school.
When I was little, the thing I wanted most in the world was to grow up. I made my first list of colleges in fifth grade (only one made it through to the final draft, Northwestern. Go Wildcats!). I moved out of my family home for boarding school at fifteen. In middle school, I chased the feeling of adulthood however I could, died on the hill that I was an old, mature, soul (I was verifiably not).
And as much as I can’t wait to experience the adulthood I’ve curated for myself throughout school, this summer, I found myself dreading it. Over summer break, you have freedom. Freedom to do whatever it is that speaks to you. That’s what kids spend the school year chasing. For me, that freedom has always meant more time to write, and more time to see my friends. After transferring to boarding school, it’s been difficult to stay connected with my friends & family from my hometown. But, over summer, it’s like I’m still fourteen. Still running around with a group of kids I met performing Frozen in middle school (I played Oaken). Still eight years old having family dinner at Mimi’s house, sat at the kids table.
I didn’t know it in June, but this summer was also the last time I would have one of those summers with my full group of friends & family. In early June, my Papa passed away. The next week, we went to the ranch as he would have wanted. Papa was a lover of westerns above all else, riding horse & shooting.
One of my dear friends passed away the next week. We’d been talking the day my family left for vacation — he was going to come and visit my work. He couldn’t, of course, because I wasn’t at work. We were on our way to the ranch.
I didn’t know that would be the last time we spoke. I was looking forward to seeing him at work; nothing made my shifts at our local Jimmy Johns as bright as seeing my friends walk through the door.
So, as summer has come to a close, I’ve been thinking about that a lot. The ending of the last season I was sharing my life with the people I loved. The summer I was really growing up, in every way.
I’ve been thinking about it especially since I’ve returned to school. At home, there are people to share loss with — mutual friends, our family. No one at my school was in Frozen in 8th grade. None of them ever heard Papa say ‘Hoo-ha’ in place of any other words.
Summer’s end — the final sunset over my adolescence, surrounded by people who formed who I am so very much. Summer, which I spend all year waiting for. Waiting to get to go home, be free, and young, infinite. This summer I’ll go home again, of course, but I won’t be all the way there. Not the way I was home at fourteen, when I didn’t appreciate it much at all.
My parents told me all the time to enjoy being young, to slow down. I never listened, because everything you get to do happens when you’re older. I think, maybe, I was misundeestandting that. You never get to be with everyone again like you do when you’re young. People grow up, change. People move away, pass away. You never get to know everyone the same way you do as an eight year old. The freedom I was talking about, that you get over summer? You only get it because there is nothing to miss when you’re little. Everything is still as it has always been, and it feels as though it will be forever. You have no concept of the fact that it won’t be. One day, you drink lemonade and for the first time, you notice whether or not the sugar granules have dissolved all way.
I sure am craving lemonade, the sort that I’ll never get to drink again.
