Dear future hubster,
the first time I put on sunscreen, the smell of it hits me every time. It smells like summer, and not just heat and water. It smells like breeze, air, literally and figuratively. It smells like freedom, even though I'm not sure what from; it smells like long days and late nights, music, mosquito bites, being young and a little reckless. I write about this every year, because it happens every year, all my hardworking blood cells do their little dance and organize themselves into tacky motivational posters to tell me to live, laugh, love. And I do, I sleep less, I feel more, everything is a little more intense once the sunscreen is on.
Last year all this intensity had nowhere to go. All we had was hopes being crushed, plans constantly postponed, grief, anxiety, nothing to look forward to. This year it feels very cautious, not-wanting-to-get-hopes-too-high, watching what others do, envying them for it, FOMO creeping back in, anxiety over how to do these things again, anxiety over whether people still remember me, whether they still want to see me, do I know how to be a normal person, how do we deal with the grief, where do we go from here.
I for one am going to a land of permanent sunscreen use. Part running away from the responsibilities of building back better, part escaping the FOMO, part phoenixing myself from under the weight of past summer lost.
I thought it might also be part hiding from the possibility that I'd lost that loving feeling, that sweet summer anticipation, that sense of urgency to live.
But then I put on sunscreen for the first time this year. And I felt it all, like I always do. We might be scarred, we might be hurt, we might be grieving. But if my very scientific method of measurement is of any indication, dear future hubster, life is still out there. We might have to practice a little, but we will live again, laugh again, love again.
