Summers used to be synonymous with happiness for me. They meant days of lazing around, wasting time, and sleeping in—until middle school, that is. After high school, summers were still about sleeping in but not so much about lazing around. I’ve been in a rat race every summer since, and this was the first summer I worked a proper 9-5 internship as well.
But I wasn’t letting that get in the way of my summer plans. For the first time in years, I had goals: I wanted to cook regularly, get ahead academically, write a novel, and take my fitness to the next level by running a 5K by summer’s end. I aspired for a summer of self-education, self-actualization, and one that could reignite my confidence.
In truth, I hid behind these plans because of a deeper fear.
Of the summer that was.
Last summer was the best one I remember having in my life. My family celebrated several milestones, my health was getting better after some sickness spells, and I was in hopelessly in love with a boy.
After an academic year marked by a breakup, minor health mishaps, and burnout, I figured the only way out of my problems was to go through them. So, I made big summer plans for myself. Call it childish, but I intended to ‘glow up’ with a vengeance—both physically and mentally.
However, as my parents always like to say: Man proposes, but God disposes.
Now, I don’t want to launch into a diatribe about my problems because I’m trying this new thing where I avoid victimizing myself and falling into self-pity. But in short, as summer unfolded, I injured my leg halfway through training for my 5K, dealt with several flare-ups of my chronic illness, and found myself in a tough mental space, feeling like I was losing my sense of purpose and motivation.
I found that the days were overlapping with one another, time moving both slowly and quickly. My family grew worried about my well-being as they saw me folding into myself. I felt crushed by the weight of my despair. My spirals began to escalate with every passing day. A ticking time bomb made itself known above me, counting down, setting off anxiety attacks at the breaking of a pen. (The last part is unfortunately not an exaggeration or flowery language.)
Every day, the ticking became louder and louder, demanding to be heard, waiting to explode, tearing me apart to beats until-
I did something I’ve never done before.
I asked for help.
I tore down my walls and acknowledged that I had issues to work through. Try as I might, I couldn’t do it alone. I might have stopped the explosion from happening but with it came a lot of work.
It meant sitting with the ugly parts of myself that I preferred to suppress. It meant trying to define my worth outside of my work, outside of how people perceived me, outside of my past mistakes. It meant not cursing out my Gods and having blind faith. It meant learning, for the first time, the value of forgiving myself.
I have had and still have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get rid of the weight on my chest. Some days are good, and some days are bad. But I hold on to the notion that one day the bad days won’t outweigh the good.
That one day I won’t wake up wishing I could be skinnier or have my small teenage frame. That one day I won’t have to turn away from the mirror out of disgust, or stop midway through laughter to make sure the moment isn’t a dream. That I won’t feel insecure about being too complicated to be unconditionally loved by anyone outside of my family.
Phew, that got a little dark, didn’t it?
Let it sink in.
And now, for some hope.
This summer I also rekindled my love for reading. I was vulnerable with my family, and it opened up so many doors of understanding between all of us. I spent more time in the kitchen experimenting with recipes that worked for me. I opened myself up to new forms of movement. I’ve learned that I can only fight to keep people in my life to a certain extent and that I deserve people who will fight for me as well.
Most importantly, I stopped making the world my enemy.
So, if the odds ever seem stacked against you, as they did for me during my “sad girl summer,” remember even a broken glass can shine.
All we must do is lift it up to the light.