Darren Sharp | Fulcrum Staff
EVERYTHING FEELS BETTER in the summer. It’s as if the second the calendar flips to June, the whole universe gets soundtracked by a Katy Perry album and things feel infinite. The clouds of spring suddenly lift, leaving a warm, fuzzy haze that makes every night out feel like the best one of your life and every moment meaningful. The beach is your office, a tank top your uniform. You’re ready to be carefree and young.
This is what makes summer love so easy. It’s simple to fall into. All it takes is a single smile from a complete stranger and you’re hooked. You’re much more prepared to lose yourself in somebody during July, when each decision you make carries a little less weight and staring into someone’s eyes for hours while laying in the sun feels like the most natural activity in the world.
These flings don’t acknowledge the laws of time. You wake up one morning—in their bed, in their t-shirt—and realize you’ve been living there for the past six days. You have no clue what you’ve been doing that whole time, but whatever it was, it felt good. Your friends ask where you’ve been, and when you respond with “I’ve been at his house,” they just laugh and roll their eyes. Time stops mattering, and you start throwing away hours like dollar bills at a strip club.
Passionate words roll off your tongue. You say “I love you” and mean it more than you’ve ever meant it before. However, there’s an implied “for now” left off the end of the sentence that hangs above your heads each time it’s said. This sits at the centre of all relationships that are clearly only meant for the summer months; every feeling you have is real, and yet each one comes with an expiry date. Both of you understand this, but neither of you acknowledge it. You focus on each other’s sun-kissed skin instead.
But there comes a time, usually in August, when you can’t ignore it anymore. Tans start to fade, the nightly temperature drops below twenty degrees, and summer relationships begin to fall apart. “Teenage Dream” stops playing. You can’t spend entire days melting into each other like you used to. There’s an ember of that fire still burning between you, but getting it started now feels like work. Feelings that once seemed so intense start disappearing, and it’s like you’re now looking at this person through a dirty window.
September comes, and it’s as if you’ve tumbled out of the wardrobe from Narnia. Dazed, you wonder if the past three months happened at all or if that summer love was a perfect dream you’ve just woken up from.
