Natalie's Nook

August starts in three days, which means it’s practically the first day of classes, which means my summer is coming to a close. My summer is over and I haven’t done anything remotely exciting.

I’m not proud.

This summer was supposed to be another one I’d thought I’d want to remember. I was supposed to hang out with a guy I liked. We were supposed to go to the movies, go out for lunch or dinner a few times, spend the fourth of July watching fireworks together, visit museums, etc. We were supposed to do all of that while getting to know each other better. I would have been ok for just a summer fling. My friends and I were going to go bowling, go shopping, attend a function (or a few)— like DC PRIDE ’19 (missed out on that), venture to an amusement park, hell— even do some arts n’ crafts: a sip n’ paint or do vision boards to plan out things we want to accomplish for the next 3-5 years.

None of that has happened and I now only have twenty-four (24) days to do anything more with my summer.

Summer ’19 has been branded as the “hot girl summer”. As our momma Megan Thee Stallion said in an interview with the Root: “It’s just basically about women—and men—just being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time, hyping up your friends, doing you, not giving a damn about what nobody got to say about it. You definitely have to be a person that can be the life of the party, and y’know, just a bad bitch.”

I was supposed to have all of that as my summer experience.

All I did was spend most of my days sitting in front of my phone camera/computer recording and editing videos for the youtube channel I finally started, spent hours indulging in books for some summer reading, spent my 4th of July going to see Spider-man Far From Home and then going home to binge season three of Stranger Things on Netflix. I spent my mornings swiping left and right on tinder to see if I’d get matched with someone decent and let me not forget to mention that for—what felt like a month—two weeks straight I stayed indoors, in my bed, overthinking about where I was at in life along with who was (and who wasn’t) in my life and why I felt like I was still so alone.

I thought not waiting on people to do things would make me feel better, to the point where I asked my mom if people went bowling alone. Apparently no one does or is it that no one has yet?

Maybe it’s me! Maybe I’m not the fun type when it comes to summertime festivities. I’ve been told I’m not “hot girl material”, and maybe tis true. Yes I used tis. I guess I have to fully embrace my boringness. And apparently I’m too damn stubborn to change even the slightest thing for me to loosen up just a little bit, because “not living is dying.”

Me typing this made part of me realize that I don’t want to spend the rest of my summer feeling so dejected. Also, me remembers two things I read in a book: “What’s real cannot be forced. . . .You’ll mean the world to someone one day.”

The summertime sadness has to come to an end.