This past weekend finally felt like Spring. The warm and sunny weather brought life back into campus, with students sunbathing on the Hoval, passing around a football, and enjoying meals outside. I, like many others, spent every second I could in the sun. On Sunday I found a table in a very sunny location and spent the entire day doing some homework and spending time with my friends. I was also very excited because the UV was 6 and hoped to get a little bit tan. Well, safe to say the sun didn’t just make me sun-kissed; by the end of the day, I looked like a full-on lobster. When I realized I was the color of a tomato, I could hear my mom’s voice in the back of my head saying, “I don’t care what the UV is, you have to put sunscreen on!” I wish her advice had dawned on me in the morning before I subjected myself to baking in the sun all day.
The first burn of the season is always the least expected. I am always too excited and distracted by the fact that I can wear a tank top without freezing to remember that my skin is not invincible. There’s something about that first warm weekend that tricks you into thinking the sun isn’t that strong yet, but clearly, it is. What I should have remembered is that sunscreen isn’t just for beach days in the middle of July; it matters just as much on a random Sunday in April when you’re sitting outside “just for a few minutes” that turns into hours.
Looking back, five minutes of putting on sunscreen would have saved me from days of discomfort and the embarrassment of looking like I fell asleep on a grill. So while the first sunny weekend felt like freedom from winter, it also came with a pretty clear reminder: enjoying the sun and protecting yourself from it have to go hand in hand.