Summer Flings

How does one let go of something beautiful but inevitably momentary? How does one let go of something better than fantasy but is definitely not reality? How does one end something that never should have begun in the first place?

I don’t think there is anything as bittersweet as a budding summer fling. You look out and the sunset is in the prettiest colors of purple and pink and beside you, a beautiful soul who reminds you of the person you were under all that layer of stress. Everything seems and feels perfect except the fact that all of this is probably going to end soon. You think about the different possible ways to make this work but you know that sooner or later – like the colors of the sunset that fade to black – this “love” that you have will eventually fade out soon too. So you dwell on this temporary bliss. You bask in this [in]finite moment. You kiss hard. You laugh harder. You try to make as much memories as you can in the hopes of having enough things to hold on to. You pretend that it is only the days which are ending and nothing else.

But you’re from the city and he’s a couple of hundred miles away. You’re a scholar and he’s a dreamer. You have your whole life planned out, or at least the next 10 years of it, and he lives by the day. You feel the need to make everything sensible and concrete while he lives to figure out the uncertainties. There are so many reasons to make you believe he’s actually good for your fast-paced life but you know that eventually, he won’t be. He’ll be too chill for you and you’ll be too stressful for him.

So just have those little moments. Watch the sunrise and swim out during the sunset. Dance like children in the streets where your laughter is the music and your pulse is the beat. Marvel in the colors of summer and the heightened sensation it gives everything else you are feeling. Don’t force it. Let it be.

Realize that some things don’t need to last a lifetime to be beautiful. Sometimes, these stolen moments of bliss are all we need to be reminded that life isn’t as cruel as it makes itself to be.

So let go slowly and then all at once. Don’t commit the mistake of dragging it out longer than it should. Allow it to remain as it is; a fling. Don’t ruin it by asking questions you’ll never like the answer to. Don’t complicate it with unnecessary drama. Enjoy each other’s company. Take photos. And let it be a summer you’ll never forget to remember.