Me: Hey, how are you? When do classes end for you this semester?
Friend: Hi!!! I’m good! I’m done on May 11 and I fly back home on May 12.
Me: OK cool, I’m flying back home tomorrow, we have to plan to see each other once you get here! So excited for this summer <3
Friend: For sure! My internship starts in late May, but we’ll definitely work something out.
Dear journal that’s been collecting dust since I last wrote to you over a year ago,
I’ve been home from college for a few weeks now, and my days feel even more repetitive than they felt during the school year. I was so excited to get out of the mundane college routine — wake up, go to class, overthink my very simple life decisions for the millionth time, go to sleep, repeat — and do something exciting with my life for a change. But my days at home have been ridden with the likes of oversleeping, sitting on the couch in my living room for five hours straight as I binge watch yet another random TV show I found on Prime Video and occasionally reading books I’ve had in my room for way too long. I could ask my friends to hang out, but whenever I do, most of them seem busy with summer classes and jobs and internships. I can’t help feeling like I’m behind.
During my copious amounts of free time, I’ve been reflecting on summers past and how much I believed this summer would be just like those I was used to. I was expecting to be able to pick up right where I left off with my friends from home and spend our summer days doing whatever we pleased. It was naïve of me to assume that those innocent summer days awaited us still.
Till next time,
Graciela
***
Friday, May 19 at 5:21 p.m.
Me: Hahaha look at this picture from last year that came up on my Snapchat memories today. We should do this again soon.
Friend: That’s so funny OMG. I can’t believe we used to spend hours rewatching the same movies and stuffing our faces with sugary snacks for fun. I feel like I’ve matured so much since then.
Me: I feel like I haven’t seen you at all this summer! When are you free?
Friend: I know, right? I’ve just been so swamped with things for my internship. Between that and the summer class I’m taking, I basically have no free time at all.
Dear journal that would probably hate me if it wasn’t an inanimate stack of papers glued together,
It’s been a month since classes ended and I’ve been back home. I’ve had so much time to do whatever I want, but I just can’t bring myself to. My mind keeps running circles around everything I wanted to accomplish this summer and comparing it to how I’m actually spending my days. I wish I was doing more, but the memories of the way I used to spend my summers haunts me. I feel like my youth is over but no one put up a warning sign to let me know. Like I was supposed to just wake up one day and feel grown up and suddenly know how to deal with incessant change.
But the truth is I don’t know how to deal with this type of change. I was never taught how to deal with it, and I don’t know how to teach myself now. I have conversations with friends over the phone about how none of us know how to deal with the ever-changing nature of early adulthood, but the second we end the call, I recur to feeling isolated and alone almost instantly. Like they were just telling me they don’t know how to deal with change because I’m clearly struggling and they can see right through me. Change, to put it simply, is tough.
I’ll be back,
Graciela
***
Thursday, June 13 at 10:05 a.m.
Me: Hey guys, are we still on for this weekend? Just double-checking to be sure.
Friend #1: Ah, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys before. I’m going to have to take a rain check. I have a midterm for my summer class coming up and I really have to get a good grade on it. Can we do anything next weekend? Again, I’m so, so sorry.
Friend #2: … I was hoping someone would cancel so I didn’t have to, but this weekend’s tight for me because of my internship schedule. I think I’m good to go for next weekend though. Sorry!
Me: That’s fine! We can reschedule, no problem.
Dear journal that’s probably sick of my whining by now,
It’s me again. I keep feeling like I’ve been wasting away in my room for the entire summer. I’m sure there’s a solution, but I also feel like I depend on my friends to have fun experiences and can’t seek them out on my own because all of my great memories of past summers are with them. I miss spending entire days together without a care in the world and spontaneously deciding to go out and see what the night had in store for us. I miss innocently laughing at each other’s jokes. I miss having conversations about what awaited us once we got to college without actually knowing what would change in our lives and what wouldn’t. I miss feeling light and free and like nothing else mattered in the world other than being in the right place with the right people at the right time.
I know it sounds like I’m blaming them for how I’m feeling, and I want to debunk that narrative before I keep going. I know these feelings are on me, and maybe my friends even feel the same way. But it just makes me sad that nothing feels the same anymore. Growing up isn’t as fun as the movies made it seem.
I’ve been trying to look for the positive side of this existential dread and inextinguishable loneliness that I’ve been feeling. I’ve started planning dates for myself, whether it’s going to my local bookstore by myself and reading for a bit or taking myself to the beach to see the sunset. I’ve started working around my friend’s schedules and trying not to get as disappointed if our plans end up changing. In the end, summer plans have always been sporadic — my disappointment was just a lot more leveled and not fueled by the growing pains of going off to college and coming back to an entirely different reality. It’s just frustrating to feel like I’m the only one that has yet to figure my life path out.
See ya later,
Graciela
***
Saturday, July 1 at 1:17 p.m.
Me: Hey, how are you? How’s your internship going?
Friend: Hi! It’s so nice to hear from you! It’s so stressful, but it’s going well. I’m glad I had the opportunity to have this experience, but I’m happy it’s almost over.
Me: Yeah, I bet it’s tiring. Do you have any time to grab dinner this week? Maybe it’ll take the stress off the few weeks you have left of the internship.
Friend: Dinner sounds amazing. I’m free Tuesday night if you are!
Me: It’s a date!
Dear journal that my life has depended on this summer,
I’m starting to feel a bit better about my summer. Not that my days are starting to look any different; they look pretty much the same. I still spend a lot of time binge-watching TV shows and trying to get through the overwhelming stacks of unread books I have here at home, but I’ve started to make peace with the time I get to spend alone too.
I was talking to a friend the other day about how I was feeling. She affirmed that my feelings were completely valid, but she also said something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. From her perspective, she thought that I’d been burning myself out, that I’d been driving myself insane over things I genuinely have no control over. She said that by the time I went back to college, I would realize that I hadn’t appreciated my time off because I was too busy thinking about everything I wasn’t doing and everyone I wasn’t seeing. After much hesitation and dragging myself further into a hole of toxic longing, I started to understand her point.
I’m starting to be OK with last minute changes to premeditated plans. I’m starting to feel better about the time I spend with myself. I’m starting to spend more time with my family. And I’m starting to appreciate this idea of independent summers. After all, it’s the beginning of an independent life.
I have a feeling I won’t be talking to you again for a while. Thanks for bearing with me.
I’ll see you when I see you,
Graciela
Statement Columnist Graciela Batlle Cestero can be reached at gbatllec@umich.edu