There are certain things that you have to do in the summer no matter how old you are.
You have to wake up too early because the sun is shining in your face. You have to lay in bed longer than you should listening to the birds chirping or the trees whispering. You have to take your breakfast outside and eat it with your feet up. You have to not know how you are going to spend your day BUT you have to know that it can be the best day of your life. You have to know that—even if it rains. If it rains you have to take off your shoes and run through it— even if you are just going to go inside and change your clothes. You have to leave your house with nothing in hand—not even a house key. You have to pick a flower but then you have to feel bad that you killed it, (but only for a second), because then you have to give that flower to someone—even if it’s yourself. You have to spend a little too much time in the sun without any sunscreen so that you get your fill and you can glow for the rest of the year. If you really want to radiate, then you have to pass your sunshine onto other people by smiling—even if you don’t know them. You have to remember your old friends and sit out by the curb remembering old times. You have to let yourself laugh at the funny parts, hold hands at the scary parts, and cry at the sad parts. You have to do that until the sun starts to go down. If you get hungry—you have to have a barbecue. You have to wonder why those watermelon seeds that you planted when you were seven never grew into watermelons and why you ever stopped digging that hole to China. You have to stop wondering and start running when you hear the ice cream man and you have to get something that you haven’t had “since you were a kid” even though you had one last summer when you thought the same thing. Then you have to eat it like you did when you were little—even if that means spilling it on your shirt and leaving it on your face. If you don’t have an ice cream man, you have to remember to bring a hoodie to the grocery store because the ice cream aisle is always freezing. You have to join into that game of hide-and-seek, spud, or TV tag. You have to watch the fireworks with the same eyes you saw them with when you thought that someone was shooting the sky and it was bleeding pretty colors. You have to write your name in the air with sparklers. You have to catch lightening bugs in a jar. You have to have a picnic in the park (or even in your front yard). You have to go to a baseball game and root for which ever team is winning. You have to slip down the slip and slide because you are still waiting for your parents to come home with crocodile mile even though you know that it was discontinued in like, 1987, because all of those kids ended up with stitches or something. You have to go night swimming but you shouldn’t go alone because even now, it can be sort of scary. You have to write a postcard to someone who isn’t with you and tell them that summer isn’t the same without them. You have to take that one last walk on the beach. You have to ride the carousel or the ferris wheel at least one time because, like life, even though you are only going around in circles—you are still going up and down and you never know who or what is around the bend. You have to stay out too late. You have to sleep in nothing but your super hero underoos (or whatever you have replaced them with). You have to fall asleep with the window open. You have to fall asleep happy then you have to wake up too early because the sun is shining in your eyes.
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