Summer

I look over the ocean as it tugs at my toes. Angry waves crash, leaving white foam behind. My sisters walk behind me with freckles blooming on their noses. A gust of wind pulls the hair from my face. The beautiful beach of Gulf Shores, Alabama stretches out around me. I stand there, basking in the heat of an unforgiving sun and allow sand to cling to my ankles. I don’t care about a thing. A left all of my worries and stress at home, I left that in Colorado. Right now, I’m free from everything. Sure, I would prefer a quiet meadow under a cloudless sky full of stars, but this is still bliss. For the first time in a while, the summer doesn’t seem daunting. I’m not afraid of the lack of structure that kills me every year. No. This year I won’t let it affect me. I won’t let my thoughts take control of me because I don’t have school to take hold of my brain. I will make an effort to hang out with my friends. To reconnect with old ones. Maybe make some new ones. This is my sixteenth summer and it will be wonderful.

E.R.B