Busy. Busy was my summer when they ask me, which they do, which it was. I turned 20 and ran across the country and back on a whim and worked long hours serving rich white people cold vessels of oysters and Chardonnay. I swam in the Pacific and ran for miles and I swam in the Atlantic and slept and slept and slept in the sun surrounded by bikini-clad friends with beers in their manicured hands. Busy, my summer was. Sounds like fun.
But busy is what I did, not how I felt, not how the summer was but rather how it went. It went quickly, but I drank it in. I fell in love, mostly, and more than any singular activity, loving is what I did. What my summer was, really, was closeness and longing and trepidation and sex, and falling and flying and adjusting my body to another in the bed.
“Love is the highest vibration” and I think that’s probably true. I sat in the passenger seat as we drove with your grandmother to dinner and felt my head click into something bigger, something unknown yet sure. I felt a buzzing that began at my crown and radiated down and looked over at you and wanted to cry, or kiss you deeply, or more. I fell backwards and beside myself and let myself lose control, breathed into this feeling of being shock-still scared and wanting more, more, more. Gluttony’s a sin and yet love will save us all, I think.
Love in the summer is everything falling into place. Freshwater wet and a little high in the backseat while the sun set around us, I touched your hand and called over the wind whipping through the open windows, “maybe it doesn’t get better than this.” Maybe it doesn’t. Watching love crawl and snake like tendrils around our soft young bodies and turning my face into the sun, letting go of any holdouts and feeling its intensity take root. I trust you completely, and so I trust this feeling, too. I fell in love this summer, mostly, more than internships or school. Mostly, I watched myself adjust and adapt to meet this newfound rush with maturity and level-headed warmth. Mostly, I fell in love, and remain in love, and busy my fall is, too.