Summers no longer belong to me.
They once were the smell of chlorine and citronella (if your neighbor was kind enough to share the bottle of OFF! her mother left on the table).
They were half-hearted games of Marco Polo that turned into conversations about life, gossip about the friends who weren’t in the pool and the mysterious neighbors you’d make up stories about— they’re secret murderers! Vampires! It gave you all goosebumps until it turned into a joke-telling match and dissolved into laughter.
Summer was wet, damaged chlorine-soaked hair because you didn’t need to worry about your lipstick smudging or how funny your hair might look when it dried. A swimsuit you bought because it fit and it was your favorite color, not because you agonized over it in a mirror.
It was climbing up the shaky ladder, racing to the pile of towels. Shivering around the thick, slightly dirty, textured glass table with the umbrella hole in the center (you know the one). It was pruned fingers and huddling under towels, talking about nothing.
Maybe someone will bring out a deck of cards and you’ll play Bullshit or War. Maybe the owner of the house will drag out a family-sized bag of Lays from their kitchen while their parents are inside watching television.
It gets late and the world is only streetlights, perhaps a few stars if pollution will allow it and the glow of your porch light.
And after one person’s parents call for their son, another calls out for their daughter. Flip flops slap toward wherever home might be. Your damp towel is hung on the banister.
Your hair is still wet and crunchy from the chlorine. It doesn’t matter.
You peel off your damp swimsuit and toss it in the bathtub. You half-heartedly splash water on your face, briefly examine the pimples on your chin and swollen mosquito bites on your arms. It doesn’t matter.
The world felt so small but so important, everything did.
It’s impossible to realize how rare, how special that is until years later when it’s gone.
Seasons change, but summer is no longer distinguished. Summer is in the same inhale and exhale as autumn, winter, and spring. It’s an extra few hours of daylight to be enjoyed through the window of a bus. It’s wearing sleeves that are a few inches shorter.
The smell of chlorine brings me back to nights where night swimming was the biggest to-do and mosquitos were the biggest concern.
I can’t remember the last time I raced toward the ice cream truck with crumpled dollar bills in my sweaty hand. I can’t remember the last time I crouched behind a tire, hoping to win a game of kick the can.
There’s nothing to run toward anymore. It’s a slow, steady walk to nowhere and sometimes you think you ought to move faster, faster, faster.
But you remember how that got you where you are in the first place. So, you keep walking. Destination? Unknown.
The seasons have blended together— temperature changes and not much else.
The seasons all taste the same. Summer has lost its bitterness and sweetness.
I no longer go underwater in pools for fear my makeup will run and my hair will dry funny.
