Fall Break Reflections

The house is cold. My house is always cold, which is why I’m huddled in an oversized yellow-and-black patterned sweater, yoga pants, and fuzzy socks, and regretting my decision to not blow dry my hair. It’s my last day home–fall break goes by so fast–and I’m spending it in an empty house, while my parents are at work. I like the space to rattle around our too-clean house (just in case an interested buyer wants to come look at our house), write out recipes to take back to college with me, to write my fiction piece, to try and read Ben Franklin (that’s not going so well), to have a quiet breakfast, staring out at our newly raked lawn, with the trees shaking down red and gold tresses. I’m making dinner tonight–trying to get my parents through the week without having to cook much. The casserole I made last night will take them through tomorrow, and hopefully there will be leftovers from dinner tonight. I worry too much. People tell me that all the time.

My room feels like a guest bedroom. They repainted the naked walls, took down my bookcases, got rid of the clock. We spent a good hour yesterday, switching out my chest of drawers. I’d been cramming my adult clothes into my childhood dresser all summer–the one I’ve had since babyhood–and wondering why they didn’t all fit. Other than the fact that I have an obscenely large wardrobe, I’ve also had this chest of drawers for twenty years. My parents bought a dark wood behemoth at the annual Baukville antique sale this summer to replace it. Things that are not fun: trying to maneuver chest of drawers’ up and down my narrow staircase and out my front yard into our barn. Nuh uh.  At any rate, my mom relented and put a mirror up and a vase of flowers up, to alleviate the “guest bedroom” feeling.

The bright red For Sale sign by our mailbox still startles me. My parents waver back and forth on selling and want to know what I think. I tell them it doesn’t matter–our next house, this house, wherever we are next will only be a temporary place of residence for me in any case. It’s their house, really. I sat out on our back deck all of Saturday afternoon, soaking in October sun and doing homework. It’s been three days of lots of work, but also lots of play. I went to church with my parents Sunday and went out to lunch with them afterwards; filled out an application while my mom made cranberry bread in the kitchen. Nice, homey things.

Every time I come home, leaving gets harder. My mom gets out of breath carrying drawers up and down stairs, I don’t like my dad on top of our roof, pulling leaves down anymore–they’re getting older and it makes me nervous to be taking off, leaving them with the chore of selling a house and moving out, all by themselves. But I come home and it all seems so familiar-foreign to me, like a memory I’m re-visiting. I went to my former place of employment Saturday night, all dressed up. It was funny–the country club members either didn’t recognize me out of context or did…I’m not sure which is worse. I spent most of my time with the employees working and floating around with a cocktail in hand, engaging in polite small talk. One of the worst things about getting older is the inevitable question, “So do you have a significant other yet?” I extricated myself from that conversation as soon as I gracefully could. But it was nice seeing everyone, watching the Otesaga Hotel light up across the bridge, the lights reflecting onto the water. Standing at the front porch railing, where I had two proms, where I’ve worked for three summers, it was like a final goodbye to that part of my life. I drove home, turning the radio up, and just drove back roads for a half hour, feeling a little sorry to be leaving again so soon.

I suppose it’s a thing of your twenties to spend it in transit, in between places, to see your future in flashes, not in unbroken stretches of road. But it’s always nice to come back to your parents–that’s the real home.

Tin Cans & String

Call me, I said, knowing
you wouldn’t, because voice to ear
to voice frightened you, too
intimate; you thought holding
hands made you a captive.

You rang thirty seconds
later, you were headed for the iceberg,
and I was the rescue
SOS blaring from you, unsinkable.
We both knew your lifeboats were full
of holes. Your voice crackled in,
Morse code urgency I couldn’t decipher
you–the new language
whose words I kept forgetting, your vocabulary
a practice in one word sentences.

The rain is a Rorschach test against my window,
we pressed our faces against the glass,
trying to come in, trying
to see what the other saw. Nothing
but smudges in the morning and I was on
high land. I prayed the flood hadn’t taken you away.

I tossed my tin can and string
across the fence, tying yards
and yards together so it would reach.
Call me, I said, knowing
it was our lifeline, our private call
line, ours.

Multiplication

Somewhere down the line, I outgrew
you, like the shelves of stuffed animals lined
up in my rose pink childhood room. I packed
you away like them, with hugs and kisses,
put you in a airtight, sterile box, labeled
with a fresh black Sharpie. Carried you
down two flights of stairs, close to my chest.

I can’t keep you,
like a security blanket, well-worn and known.
It’s time to stand on the sidewalk alone, waiting
for that school bus to come and take me
somewhere new. My room is blue
these days and I’m still learning the math of one
plus one equals two. My sums have never come out right.

Math books say
that one is the building block for the positive
integers. So it all begins
here. Build a strong foundation on one,
and then multiply. Times two
only comes after you’ve learned one
times one.

It’s almost the season of changing colors,
changing skins, like I’m made of snakeskin.
Autumn breathes a blessing like a breeze
sweeping vibrant leaves away. I still hold you
in my safest places, in the sweep of my eyelid,
the crook of my elbow, but it’s time
to relearn the sum of me.

Organs

Scars like stubble
beetle track across parchment paper skin.

Working hands,
like every cut opening up into red
stories—remember that time when?
Daddy hands,
like your hands have always been continents
to my countries, and I didn’t mind
getting engulfed there.
Giant hands,
pinching jam jars off in three and a half
seconds (I counted).
Packing snowballs the size of my face
(I remember).

I used to count your scabs and band-aids,
trying to understand how the world could hurt you.

Little girl hands,
open map of my journey, like I’ve only just
jumped in the car—let’s go.
Writing hands,
like ink stains can form new stories on my skin,
like I could copy yours.
Talking hands,
mouth trying to keep up
with all the gesticulation accompanying a truly good story.

I’m not a little girl anymore, one inch below your forehead,
but I’m womb safe when you hold my hand.

Moving Day

When you’re in your twenties, transitions are to be expected. Addresses change like fashions, friends come and go, we move from one phase of life into the next. One thing that is always a constant is your parents’ house. The safe harbor.

I came home last night to my safe harbor. My father’s face lit up with this slow, incandescent smile, and he didn’t have to say anything to let me know he was happy I was home. I hung onto him for a long time and he let me. My mom made up our dining room with a tablecloth and candles, and made lasagna, salad, and bread to celebrate my homecoming. I chased my cats around the house until they would let me pick them up and cuddle them.

And then, last night, my parents announced that they intend to move. Our mortgage is too high. I was sitting by our fireplace and got a chill nonetheless. I have moved six times in twenty years of life. I thought we’d stay in this house forever. They intend to stay in the area, but we’ll be living in a smaller house, not the house of my high school years. We’ve been here for seven years and after seven years, it’s hard to not be more than a little attached. They went to look at houses today. I went out to breakfast with a friend instead.

I’m twenty. In two years, I won’t even be living at home anymore. In fact, I very much hope to be living back in Germany in two years. I’m the adult child now. I’m grown up and going to be fully out of the nest soon. I have no real say in this decision–it impacts me on a much lower level, and I know it’s for the best. I don’t want to see my older parents struggling to finance our house, when they could easily downsize.

But the sentimentalist in me went through our house last night, touching walls, counting steps, trying to put away snapshots into my memory file. The  birthday parties with twenty girls crowding into our tiny living room, the arguments over the dining room table, the countless family, Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthday dinners cooked in the kitchen. My room, where I struggled through adolescence, where I sink gratefully into my own bed after months at college, whose every nook and cranny I know.

I still dream of my childhood home in Maryland, with honeysuckle bushes lining the driveway and big front porch with the swing. The two big pine trees in our front yard where I first learned how to climb a tree and picked off cicada skins with a mixture of revulsion and fascination. The arching magnolia tree under which I made stone soup for my dad, the hammock between the apple trees, the large field out back, where I pretended I was a horse and galloped up and down the length of it for hours on end. The collection of stones by the old shed where I cuddled six baby kittens once. Our sunroom, with red floors and deck chairs, and the ledge above the door, where our silly cat would always get stuck. The lilac bushes crowding in our kitchen windows in early spring, bursting with light and dark blooms and fragrance. The cool green kitchen, the expansive upstairs that was mine, all mine, and the attic that I was scared of. I still know every part of my family house intimately. I don’t dream about this house: it’s always the Maryland house. Maybe when we move this time, I’ll dream of this house.

Today, my parents came back from visiting houses. I walked into see two appraisals sitting on our kitchen table. I went straight upstairs. My mom just knocked, poked her head in.

“You need to start de-cluttering. We definitely want to–”

“Move?” I asked, cutting her off, putting my words in before she could.

“Move,” she said. “So we need to start downsizing now. A little bit every day, okay?”

A little bit of my angsty teenage self is surfacing. I don’t want to move. I love every part of this house, with the creek in the backyard that I swam up and down in eighth grade with friends. With the funny outdoor steps going from the second floor down to the deck and the roof I used to illegally climb onto and sun myself on during the summer. I mowed every damn inch of our 3/4 acre property this summer. I know where the roots in the trees are, how to steer around our trees and forscythia bush. My parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary tree is in this yard. Our vegetable garden. Our compost pile. My mom’s art studio. My dad’s shop. The tree I brought home from 11th grade AP Bio has gotten so tall. We just redid the barn, with lovely winding gravel pathways, and it hurts to leave all this love and care to someone else. It’s not just money we’ve invested in this property: there’s been so much love of home put up into this house, these grounds. My mother’s paintings scatter the walls of our house, our shelves and shelves of books heaped everywhere, our split rail fence brave against strange dogs and snowbanks.

I hated this house when we first saw it. I sulked the entire car ride up from Maryland when we first came up to see it. I was twelve. Now I can’t imagine leaving it. Readjusting to another house, that will never really be home. I’ll be a visitor in this new home. I won’t live there, not like I’ve lived in the Maryland house or this house. I will stay there four or five months out of the year. That’s not home. I see my parents packing up and moving on, moving onto the next phase in their life, without a child at home. And in a way, I sense a final farewell to childhood. Things are different now. I suppose this is the last tie to be broken. Someone will someday perhaps sit where I am sitting now, writing this. There will be more hopes and dreams and fears in my room, another life lived out in this house I call home. I only hope they will love it as much as we have.

Elementary Steps

I’m sitting on a swing in the elementary school playground, shivering, looking at the stars. It’s the January thaw, toying with my emotions, as I swing my legs back and forth, the soles of sneakers grazing blacktop as they hit the ground.

My car is parked in the lot a few hundred feet away. That’s something I haven’t gotten to say before. I can drive now, finally got my license (ha), and I’ve come here to sit and think awhile. I’ve stargazed by these swings a multitude of times. The soccer field stretches out behind me, yawning memories and phantom shouts to my back. The track sits dark and silent to my right-we never could afford track lights-reminiscent of days from March to June spent running circles, sweating, forming team spirit, finally being a captain of track, being the senior girl that others looked up to.

I can’t call this my elementary school. I didn’t go here. My friends forget that I moved here in 8th grade. I wove myself into the mesh of their memories and pattern of small hometown life as tightly as I could. I never wanted to unweave, to be a stranger in this place. I wanted to belong.

I’m wishing on stars tonight. I saw Orion’s Belt for the first time a week ago in Long Island and felt a little comforted finding another structure in the constellations. I’m picking the biggest and brightest star in the sky and wishing for a lot of things. I get to be selfish with stars in a way I don’t let myself with people. I go back to college tomorrow. I get one more night to sit with the stars, close my eyes, take one more chance to process everything that has happened, and be quiet.

Being a kid isn’t easy, no matter what people tell you. Even as a five, six, thirteen, fourteen year old, you face your own set of challenges. They might not be “grown up problems”, but to you, right then, they’re as real as anything. But nights like tonight, I’m holding onto these swing chains of my childhood and trying to find the Big Dipper. It’s going to be little steps that pull and tug and tease me through the semester. Small incentives to make me take that last step. A lot of deep breaths and a lot of breathless runs.

I often bite off more than I can chew (this upcoming semester is a STELLAR example), but I have to remember to chew before I try to swallow, or I’ll choke.  I think we see the big picture sometimes and panic. We don’t think of all the little pixels that make up the larger picture. Sometimes, I forget the people that have been holding my hand all along. The tsunami in my heart washes everything away in a blind natural disaster of panic and I flounder. But then the skies clear–they always do, eventually–and someone steps into the surf and picks me up. Or I struggle to the shore myself, with strong, defiant strokes that I didn’t know I had in me.

I get tired, a lot. I get tired of the cattiness and pettiness. I get tired of people not telling me the truth and covering up their lies. I get tired of trying to figure out if someone is angry with me, or just having a bad day. I get tired of the fighting and screaming and yelling and crying. I get tired of navigating social circles and being the peacemaker. I get tired of the stupid drama that people find necessary to bring into everyone else’s lives. It makes me into a person I don’t like. And so I go away, for a little while. I go for a run and let the cold air sear my nose, my throat, my lungs, until I can’t breathe. I write pages and pages of blue. I plug in headphones and shut myself away until I can be a good, decent person again. I can’t fix everyone, but goddammit, I will try my hardest until my dying day. And through that, I fix myself, work out my own answers, find my own peace of mind.

Sometimes, you’ll find me in the gazebo at school late at night, stargazing over the valley. It’s centering, stargazing. It reminds you, in the grand scheme of things, all these funny little human squabbles don’t mean very much. I can feel my heart beating and I can see the stars at night, and that’s all I need for that first baby step.

Happy 2013!: or how I spent my New Year’s Eve.

I’m sitting in a fancy dress and my mother’s pearls, sipping champagne. I’m laughing, phone forgotten, impervious to the darkness glaring into our lit room from the windows all around us. The fire is roaring in the other room, CNN is on, filming the masses shivering in Times Square to watch the ball drop. I was there last year, surrounded by my Australian oldie from exchange, my grand-oldie, and about seven or eight Germans. And this year, I’m surrounded by high school friends. We’ve all come home and we’re all gathered here. We’re a lot taller, high heels, dresses, and ties in abundance, champagne and wine bottles are scattered over the kitchen counter. The boys have opened up a few beers. We’re in our second or third year of college now. We still whisper and laugh about the same things, exchange secrets over red Solo cups, assemble unwillingly for a group photo. We flash our pearly whites for a second, for immortality; someday we might be showing our children this photo, lifting it carefully out of a weathered shoebox. We make funny faces, try to be serious, and break right before the camera flashes–“GODDAMMIT GUYS!”–and I slip my high heels off with a sigh of relief, letting my toes sink into the carpet.

We haven’t changed much. Not really. Our personalities might have blossomed or expanded since high school, but we haven’t changed fundamentally. I still spit my drink out accidentally (because I’m that awkward girl) as one friend starts a story indicating her interest in Judaism hasn’t changed. Some of us are still sneaking out the back to smoke in the backyard. We’re all more or less still single. We’re scattering to the far corners of the earth this summer, and it’s a little sad to think that we won’t have a gathering like this until next Christmas or New Year. We’re growing up, adults making small talk and eating fruit and cheese platters.

Thrift Shop, by Macklemore & Ryan starts blasting out of the speakers. We’re lining the walls, either casually watching the pong game, singing and dancing along to the music, or chatting under the music. I forget that we’re 21 (or almost 21) now, and it’s still weird that my mother accepts that I’ll be drinking to celebrate New Year’s, and lets me go. (“Make good choices!! Don’t let anyone drive drunk!” is what rings in my ears as I scurry out of the house, cherry cheesecake and overnight bag in hand.) 

“I LOVE THIS SONG!” someone screams and we’re all doubling up in laughter, the world a little askew and sparkling, like the champagne bubbling up in our glasses.

And then Opa Gangnam style comes on, and everyone is dancing, even those who don’t know the dance. I’m filming and cracking up. Two of the boys are reenacting the music video and I’m very careful not to drink anything else and spit that out too, because I’m laughing so hard. It’s loud and noisy and fun and suddenly, it doesn’t matter that we haven’t seen each other since the summer. We’re home. We’re old friends. Our social gatherings have gone from sleepovers and nail painting and gossip to social drinking and playing music and Truth or Dare Jenga. (Which by the way, adds a whole new level of terror to Jenga, if you’re wondering.)

Someone realizes it’s 11:55 later on and we screech and flood into the living room, to crowd around the TV and Anderson Cooper’s face. Kathy Griffin comments are being made and suddenly it’s 11:59 and some people don’t have drinks and we’re counting down seconds now.

“Run, run, run!” we scream, because it’s unacceptable to not have something to toast with, and at 11:59:35, she’s back, and we wait, and start screaming at 11:59:45:

FIFTEEN. FOURTEEN. THIRTEEN. TWELVE. ELEVEN. TEN. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN. SIX. FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!

And the room erupts in even more screaming and we’re toasting and hugging and yelling “Happy New Year!” Then someone starts singing Auld Lang Syne, and we all join in. So we’re bellowing Auld Lang Syne, half of us standing on the couch, half below, and it’s 2013, and it’s the perfect way to ring in the New Year.

Old Friends

In a way, I feel like I’m in a time warp.

We’re all crashed at Katie’s house, lolling over two sofas, with an open bag of Cheez Doodles and mountains of sugary candy. The fire is roaring. Everyone has their iPhone out (or in my case, my little Stone Age phone). We’re discussing what there is to do in Cooperstown and complaining (like usual) that there’s not a whole lot of options past 5 pm.

It’s like nothing really changed much, except that we’re a little leggier, hair has gotten shorter or longer, fashion choices have evolved a little, and instead of playing mindlessly with our Motorola Razors, we’re all tappity tapping on iPhones.

But it’s weird. I feel like we were thirteen and fourteen just a few days ago, although I know that two of our number have just come back from semesters abroad in Kenya and Russia. No one is coming home this summer–we’re scattering to the far corners of Washington D.C., sunny California, Ithaca, one is undecided and well, I, I’m staying home. (The promise of free lodging and a fantastic waitressing job is too good for me to turn my nose up in the interest of “real freedom”.) We’ve got cars and my friends will all be seniors in college next year. (Upon which it was remarked: “It’s weird that you’re not graduating with us, Amy.” Ah, the joys of an exchange year, I’m a year behind. Which actually doesn’t bother me at all, really. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.) We’re talking about apartments and more semesters abroad and what we’re going to do after graduation. (“I figured it out this morning in bed. Here’s my three options….”)

I guess the funny thing is that slowly, we’re ceasing to play at being adults and actually becoming adults. We’re being eased out into that real world inch by inch and sometimes it’s hard to tell. The high school world seems so far away. We catch up on Cooperstown gossip by asking Katie’s younger sister, who is still in high school. We’re the older generation of young people now–our seniors have already stopped coming home.

One of our friends has an annual “get-together” each year around this time, where all fifteen or sixteen of us converge on her house dressed up and bearing food for a potluck. We may not have talked to each other in awhile (fifteen or sixteen is a lot of people to stay in touch with, I don’t know how we did it in high school), but it’s like old times again when we all see each other. We play catch up, tell stupid inside jokes again, take pictures, eat, talk about futures. We all turn 21  this year, another growing up sort of thing. (What, you mean, we’re allowed to legally drink together? Well that’s weird.) My friends promised that we’ll celebrate my 21st in style next winter (I’m the baby of this group, which is funny, because at college, I’m towards the older end)–someone will end up getting thrown out the window of The Pratt, one of two bars in our town. I think they’re joking–I hope.

I think too, this New Year, three or four of us will end up hiking up the giant cross-country hill with a bottle of champagne and bundled in winter coats, and wait for the New Year to break up there, knee deep in snow (wheeee, giant snowstorm!) and then screech “HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!” out over the empty fields at the top of our lungs, at the top of our world, where we can only just barely see the lights of our town below.

They say the way you ring in the New Year is an indicator of how the rest of your year will be. If it starts with a bottle of champagne and good company, it ought to be a very good year indeed.

Growing Up

Part of growing up always seems to be disillusionment.I had the most wonderful ideas in my head growing up, and by hook or by crook, I learned the truth. Sometimes things are more wonderful when you make them up yourself. That’s why I’m almost always disenchanted by movies that were originally books. I’ve created a face and a person for the characters in the book, and of course it’s different in a movie.

When I was first reading the Chronicles of Narnia, probably around age 7 or 8, and read about Turkish Delight, it sounded well..delightful. I imagined this confection of everything I liked: lots of sugar, exotic spices, a sweet sort of chewy candy. Turns out it’s actually flavored gelatin with powdered sugar. I liked the version in my head better. I was also convinced for a long period of my childhood that diamonds were a light purple. Please don’t ask me how I was so sure they were purple, I just was. That’s how they looked in my head. Talk about disappointment when I found out they were clear. I wrote elaborate notes to Santa Claus & Co. and the Tooth Fairy. (I was clearly not a cynical child.)

I think the thing I miss most about growing up is simply my child’s imagination. I amused myself for countless hours in the summer, sitting under our old bowed magnolia tree, putting together exotic soups of moss, pebbles, flowers, pine needles, and whatever else I could find. I played hide-and-go-seek with myself in the honeysuckle bushes. I pretended I was a princess, or a warrior, or a detective, hiding behind our porch swing and spying on my mother, who was calmly clipping English Ivy away from our house. I marched out into our expansive back yard with binoculars and pretended I was surveying the area for marauders. When our grass got long enough, I galloped through the back yard, pretending to be a horse or a unicorn, depending on what book I was reading that week. When mulberry time came, I clung to a high branch for dear life and shook berries down for my parents to collect, pretending I was Laura Ingalls or Anne of Green Gables. I ran across the yard and played with my next door neighbor: pirates, captive princesses, and keeping house. (I always ended up  marrying him in these games….) I probably did more with my playset than the average child: it was an obstacle course, a jungle gym, and a path over hot lava.

I don’t know if being an only child stimulated my active imagination, or if I was simply just born with it. Whatever the case, given my huge backyard, a sewing kit and stuffed animals, and a few other odds and ends, I was set loose on the seas of my imagination. I don’t know if I’ve had such a good time just by myself since. I miss that freedom. A few years ago, I sat down with my favorite stuffed animals and bag of cloth and ribbon, and tried to pretend again. I tried to weave elaborate stories around them. I couldn’t do it. I just saw them as they were, stuffed animals adorned in scraps of cloth and ribbon. They weren’t heroes or princesses or damsels in distress anymore. And I was a little sad, as I put them away. That was the end of childhood.

Writing fiction used to be like breathing. Now that I’m older and life is more complicated, the best I can get to is creative non-fiction. I’m a little more cynical now. I gave up on Barbie dolls and pink tutus and Prince Charming. Now nineteen and a little wiser, I’m remembering the best stories come from your head. Where you can lose yourself and take yourself away from this crazy world for a little while. You can lost in your own thoughts and dream, and maybe there, white knights in shining armor do come and save the day. True love is real again. Stuffed animals can be whoever you want them to be, and a soup of sticks and stones is the finest feast you can serve.

Stargazing and Swinging

The six of us stared at each other glumly over the top of Katie’s kitchen counter. We always seemed to wind up back here, eating something. Right now, it was freshly underbaked Ghiradelli dark chocolate brownies and milk. Nothing much had changed since we were twelve or thirteen. Now nineteen and twenty, we were facing a long stretch of summer, without the promise of much to make it exciting. What does one do in Cooperstown, when you’ve lived in this tiny town for almost all your life?

“Do you want to go swinging at Kid City?”

Despite the objections that it would be cold out, we bundled up and headed out into the dark summer night. No matter how old we got, we loved swinging and we loved Kid City, the playground behind the elementary school. For younger kids, it was absolute heaven; full of turrets and bridges and monkey bars. For us older kids, it was memories…and swings. They had revamped Kid City a couple of years ago, and it was foreign to me, as we cut through the elementary school parking lot, down the dark bike path, and into the dewy grass.

We raced to the swings–someone was going to get stuck with the baby swing.We sat and simply swung for a bit, seeing who could go the highest. I haven’t swung in forever, and I forgot the feeling that you were flying, of being a child again. I pulled my hair out of its braid and let the night wind muss it. I tipped my head back and looked at the sky, dotted all over with stars.

“Oh look, stars. I’ve missed the stars,” someone said, with a sigh. Agreement was murmured among those of us who went to college in cities.

And eventually, we all stopped swinging, and laid on our backs to look at the stars. It was such a perfect moment, all six of us, down on the ground, looking for the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, the North Star. Quietly singing songs that had gotten stuck in our heads. No matter how far away we went, we’d all come home for summer, and it was like an older version of high school. I realized that those days are over–we’re adults now, or swiftly becoming adults. We started talking about life–how apparently, at least half of us are going to have Alzheimer’s when we’re older, and one of us is going to die of cancer. And then we got silly, because we’re only nineteen and twenty, and death is still so far away for us.

“We’re living longer, but living sicker,” argued one of my friends.

“So live hard and die young!” (Said with the optimism of youth.)

Toria, springing out of her swing: “YOLO!”

Those moments were the epitome of my summertime memories. It was so perfect. Before I left to come home, I wrote that I needed to come home, to the unconditional love of my friends here at home. The people I’ve grown up with, the people who really do know me best. They’ve seen me at my best and my worst. We’ve had our differences and we’ve made up our fights, and we were there for each other when it mattered, and sometimes when it didn’t. My high school friends are the people I go stargazing and swinging with, lay on the tarmac and talk about life with, laugh the hardest with. I value these memories and this time with them so much. If this is my summer, it will be a beautiful one.