Twenty Something

Wired earphones are back in trend now, and so is the color turquoise. As I still see flashes of green and blue passing by me, I realize that nobody is really ready to say goodbye to summer yet.

Unfortunately, summer to me no longer feels like the vacation I used to long for during the long nights of homework. I remember bouncing my legs during final exams, not so much because I was nervous about the test, but because I just couldn’t wait to go home, throw my backpack on the couch, and run outside, announcing the beginning of my summer break.

My neighbor and her brothers lived ten floors above me, and we had what we called our “secret garden.” We would climb trees, look for baby kittens to rescue, buy ice cream our parents told us not to get, and stay outside until my mom shouted my name from our apartment window for dinner.

Summer also meant flying to Seoul and being in my grandparents’ arms again. It meant eating my grandma’s cucumber kimchi right before bed, just because I wanted to. It meant getting as many stickers as I wanted from stationery stores. It meant going out for barbecue with my grandpa and telling him everything about school: who had become my best friends, who I didn’t like very much, and watching him sit across from me, just smiling as he listened.

The day I was born, my parents received many gifts from friends and loved ones. One of them was a baby blanket with cartoon stars and moons printed all over it. I still remember that the moon had a little face with red cheeks, and the stars all had sleepy faces.

The blanket was much too big for me, so my grandma cut it in half and turned one blanket into two.

If you ever had a teddy bear you slept with, I had my blankie. One half stayed with me in my room back home, and the other half stayed with my grandparents in Seoul. No matter which home I was sleeping in, it was there with me.

This lively season, which once meant reunions, wild adventures, and scratched legs and arms from climbing pomegranate trees, had quietly slipped away. And I hadn’t even gotten the chance to say goodbye to it. I simply wasn’t ready to.

So even though summer now means long train rides from work to home, my head resting against the window after a long, tiring day, a part of me will always be living in the summers that have already passed.

As the breeze started to feel a little colder, and as I noticed a small gold leaf stuck under my shoe from a piece of gum I had stepped on, I realized that maybe I don’t ever have to say goodbye to it.

If wired earphones and turquoise can come back, maybe my summers can too.