Opinion by RowanHamm

When I think of summer my mind immediately goes to the beach. 

I think of the sand, the bright sun and praying that when I go home I won’t find my skin to be as red as the towel I brought. 

I think of big umbrellas and the way the sand sticks to every part of your foot even if you try putting your flip-flops on before walking back to your spot.

I think about all of this only for me to be brought back to reality. 

The reality is that I live in the smack-dab center of the country where there isn’t an ocean in sight for miles despite the state having a ban on whale hunting.

While I love Nebraska when the leaves are falling and Vala’s season begins, I can’t help but feel a painful twinge of disappointment when I think about the summer.

But why?

Could be all of the summer movies I grew up watching where 90% of the story revolves around a champion surfer or a magical mermaid. Maybe it’s because I’m just a little addicted to my phone and see those “summer aesthetic” videos the second it hits 65 degrees that never truly account for the real Nebraska summer: hot, humid and riddled with storms that shake houses and flatten trees.

Realistically, it could be any of those things but I think I am the root of my own problem.

I put so much pressure on myself to have the perfect summer that no matter what I do, it will never feel like enough. I keep comparing summer vacation to something blurry and far away. Something built from sunscreen ads and coming-of-age movie montages. 

But my summers, my Nebraska summers, are so very different.

Affer all, what is an above ground pool under a big oak tree with swinging bags of rainbow colored japanese beetles to the Pacific Ocean and Californian glamor?

Or standing on your tiptoes to tell the teenage Dairy Chef worker exactly how you like your ice cream. Extra Fudge, hold the sprinkles.

What about burning the back of your legs while sliding down the metal slides downtown. Curse the cardboard that slipped out from under you while going down.

And the whispered hopes that your friend can spend the night since a tornado might roll through? The thunder is becoming just as loud as the phone call in the other room between your moms about road conditions. 

How could that ever compare to the “perfect” summer I completely made up in my head?

Maybe it’s the things I take for granted that make my summer perfect. 

Maybe I don’t need the waves of some far away ocean to make me feel weightless, the late-night drives through my hometown do that for me.

Maybe the summer storms I watch from my bedroom roof are the grains of sand that stick with me even after I leave the beach. 

Maybe listening to the cicadas sing after a long hot summer to remind us fall is coming around again is just the thing I need to remind myself to embrace the present. 

Or maybe, just maybe, my perfect summer isn’t one that someone else has determined for me; it’s just mine. It is all mine.