It’s August, which means teens everywhere are gripped by a low-key panic: How do you make summer count? After all, the summer days are slowly melting away, and soon enough we’ll be sitting in sticky classrooms, glancing out the window and yearning for the summer days that have slipped past.
There’s a lot of pressure to enjoy the perfect summer. The media we’ve grown up with has portrayed summer as impeccable, eternal, and full of transformative adventure in movies like “Stand by Me,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” and “The Goonies.” In a way, it feels like summer is held up as the pinnacle of youthful joy and growth, the time when everything necessary happens.
For me, it’s the summer before senior year. The sense that time as a high schooler is running out only adds to the urgency to have a perfect final summer. After this, we’ll spend summers preparing for college and working on intense internships. High school friends will scatter across the country. So how can we make it count?
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I’ve been lucky enough to spend much of the summer in Morocco on a language study program, making memories and having experiences I never thought possible, like riding a camel and learning how to make Moroccan rfissa [A traditional Moroccan dish of chicken and lentils.].
Even so, when I look back at my summer so far, I feel a prickle of regret.
Being abroad means being away from friends and family, and it’s impossible not to feel a sting while looking at photos of my friends hanging out at cafes, or my family celebrating the Swedish Midsommar holiday, a tradition in my Swedish-American family. I mourn the hikes I never took, the movies I never saw, and the bike rides I never went on.
Many teens, including myself, cling stubbornly to an idea of a “perfect summer.” And why wouldn’t we? For eight months of the year, we’re trapped in classrooms, staring at computer screens for 6 hours per day, with 20-minute lunch breaks, 3-minute dashes to our next classes, and hours of homework to look forward to. And the prospect of a frosty Belmont winter sure doesn’t help.
We tend to build up hype for the ever-motivating promise of scorching-hot, action-packed summer as a light at the end of the wintry tunnel. I can remember countless lunch periods spent concocting plans for a summer road trip to Crane Beach with my friends. We planned out every detail, down to who would drive and which snacks we would take.
While we all love summer for the promise of relaxation, all teens have experienced some kind of summertime loneliness. Whether it’s on a vacation with our parents, scooping ice cream for noisy customers, or just lying in bed with our phones, we all might, just maybe, miss school.
Not the classes, crowded hallways, and late-night cramming sessions, but the friend you see in the hallway between second and third period; the fun, last-period elective where no one gets any work done; or the teacher who always seems genuinely interested in your weekend every Monday morning. We can’t help but miss the connections that come from going to school.
So how do we fix summer? Text those friends, go on those sunset hikes, and take those meandering bike rides. Do everything you can think of to turn reality into the picture-perfect summer of your imagination. Even if you don’t end up with a Hollywood ending, at least you will have had fun trying.
Siri Iagnemma is a Gen Z columnist for the Belmont Voice. She is a rising senior at Belmont High School and a writer for the school’s newspaper, “Highpoint,” and is a member of BHS’s cross country and track teams.
