summer reveries (and nostalgia)- from 2020

The snow is melting, and I didn't realize how much of an impact that would have on my mental health until I walked outside of my car to fill up my gas tank and stared up at evergreens that lined the side-street, feeling the sun on my sleeves (I only had to wear one layer).

Icicles that hung over the rectangular-roof were dripping, and seeing the green of the leaves through the sunset hours and blue sky reminded me of last summer. After the click of the gas pump, I stepped inside of my car which was warm and began to remember. I felt hope again.

Summer 2020 was my last summer in college, and though in the midst of the pandemic, I was growing an appreciation for nature after the harsh winter and consciousness-expanding experiences the year prior.

In July, I skinny-dipped for the first time, under a meteor shower after midnight, and I felt as though I left everything behind. In having such a terrestrial (and celestial) human experience, it was liberating. I felt as though I was swimming in the Earth's womb and I was empowered. I knew then that I needed to spend more time in nature.

That entire summer, my most memorable experiences were kaleidoscopic shades of greens and blue. I felt a deep fondness for water and for the trees. I remember swimming in creeks, rivers, lakes, and quarries all across the state of Iowa. Where there was water and seclusion, there was me.

I felt as though I was learning a lot from nature and Heraclitus put it best in this quote: "You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on." Gradually, I was learning that everything changes and in my experiences in social life and in nature, was being proven that this was so. I dissolved myself into Buddhist and stoic material- realizing that I could live a much more liberating life having to break away from attachments, and as the green began to fade away, slowly, I was fading away from my attachments as well.

I realized that summer that everything is shifting, and upon realizing this, I recognized that while everything had changed around me, there were a few things that remained the same, whether I liked it or not. My friends and my job.

At the beginning of August, in feeling ready for a change, my internship was not renewed. Additionally, with an ounce of developing genuine self-love, I recognized that I needed to pull away from situations that weren't good for me. That same week, my relationship with my friends, a girl I was seeing at the time, and my best friend were concluded . It all faded away almost in an instant, and I felt frozen and motionless. Jobless, friendless, and single were now words that I used to characterize myself.

Caught up in the realization that everything was change and I should let go, intrinsically, I was holding on to things around and about me that rejected a core belief I was holding. And mostly, what I held onto, were ideas about myself for leaving people around me, and an unwillingness to recognize that I was in poor and abusive situations (which I will go into in my next post).

Summer 2020 was a testament to my strength and a bridge between facing the polarity of good and bad (which I also knew [through my experiences] intrinsically, that these were subjective and things just "are"). It taught me open-mindedness. I began to listen to music from all across the globe, enlighten myself with more spiritual understanding, and even picked up the guitar as an outlet for my emotions. Most importantly and most harshly, it taught me that sometimes, change won't just happen for me, but I have to make the change, and both are a part of life.

In an ode to a summer that filled me with life lessons: learning to break free from situations for my own well-being, understanding breaking away from attachments and how necessary it is to grow independently, and recognizing the beauty of the world that is around me, I made this little edit of one of the last times I went swimming last summer.

And in officially breaking free from my unhealthy attachments, I now look forward to this coming summer with even better memories filled with healthier love and more experiences within nature.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d2cf20_d5949961c9e64f779b0bb6393b311090/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

song: Grandeza by Sessa