A Summer About Life

"This is how it works

You're young until you're not

You love until you don't

You try until you can't

You laugh until you cry

You cry until you laugh

And everyone must breathe

Until they're dying breathe

No this is how it works

You peer inside yourself

You take the things you like

And try to love the things you took

And then you take that love you made

And you stick it into some

Someone else's heart"

--Regina Spektor, "On the Radio"

For me, what was meant to be a relaxing summer before the college plunge has proven to be one of the most difficult yet.  It has been a summer of feeble attempts to do everything I can and in turn, has been a summer of the reality that I can't do it all.  I listened to this song and the words seem to jump out at me as a message of how to live my life.  It told me I can't do everything...a crude realization, but an utterly true one.  It told me I can't be friends with everyone, that some friendships will last and others will fall.  It has told me things I desperately don't want to hear, but things that are necessary to hear.  It told me I must go on and spread my love through my world.  Not the whole world, that's what I want to do and can't do.  No, for now, I need to spread love through my world.

There have been beautiful moments this summer and also moments that have made me sad.  If I want to really live life, I must experience both.  I put on a play this summer with 10 friends in six weeks and, exhausting as it was, it was a wonderful way to spend my time.  I have spent many hours in the company of old friends and new friends alike.  There have been evenings spent in tears, tears that show our concern for what lies ahead.  There have also been times of pure laughter, living in the moment and not letting anything get in our way.  It's been a summer unlike any other and as I prepare to go to college, I wonder if there will be more summers like this one.  Summers of joy, but of uncertainty.  Of love and of irritation.  Of the realization that some things will come to an end, whether we want them to or not.  

The next year will be full of the same feelings, but this difficult summer is something for me to be grateful for.  It has taught me things that were important to know before I approached my entirely new world of college.  In the end, though it has been harsh and tearful, this summer was a blessing for me.  Blessings come in many forms and this is one I don't often like to see, but as I grow older, I realize how important it is to hear the painful truth in the times you desperately don't want to.  I am thankful for the tears and the laughter and they will go with me into the next year where there will be even more.