Summer Optimism™ by Anna Snedden

I sneezed and now it’s the Fall. 

It wasn’t that long ago that I gazed upon a calendar with an imminent June, thoughts of sunshine and wildflowers swirling, when I turned to my partner and said “What if I just got shredded this summer lol”.

It’s Summer Optimism™. 

(Trademarks pending.)

We’ve all been there. We putter through the winter slog. We inch our way across spring. At the same time, our Instagram feeds gently…gradually….ever-so-subtly start increasing in saturation. The group photos start shedding layers. #BacheloretteParties start popping up like zits. Flip flops creep their way out of closets and feet creep their way out of close-toed shoes. The days grow longer, magazines start to choke on bikinis, and Summer Optimism™ kicks in. 
It’s that feeling of “This is going to be the best summer of my life”. And it’s easy! All you have to do to have a great summer is to just do it. You grow nostalgic for memories you haven’t made yet. Before summer, were all just pre-skinny. Before summer, we’re hiker-adjacent. Before summer – hell, we’re not even in spring – we’re before summer. Glorious Summer Optimism™. It’s a Mean Girls world where “the limit does not exist”. 

And then we sneeze. We do a giant, collective group sneeze and it’s gone. And we’re left missing what was, zooming in on our photos to ogle at our own tan lines. We don’t understand how it went so fast. We think, “shouldn’t I remember every single moment of every single day of summer because in my head it was going to be this transcendent time of year that put my hopes and dreams into a string bikini and strapped them onto a rocket and blasted it to stars? Why did it feel like…a regular 3 months?” 

Because the thing we love most isn’t summer, it’s the time pre/post summer. Those 9 months of Summer Optimism™. Living in the moment is one of the hardest things on earth. While I want nothing more than to be the type of girl who can go sit on the beach, day in and day out, reading books, listening to waves, growing more and more radiantly sun-kissed…. My dark secret is that even then, I’m looking to the future. I’m already on my couch, at home, pantsless, my boyfriend and Halo Top next to me, playing The Sims. 

So maybe I can’t enjoy the summer while I’m in it. Maybe none of us really can. Or maybe I’m the only one. But you know what? At least it’s always summer in The Sims.