in the heart of august

My skin is hot from the sun, my hair is tangled from the ocean, watermelon juice is on my fingers, and the smell of coconut sunscreen fills my nose.

Summer is my happy season, especially as a girl born in August. I am a sunflower waiting to bloom, and summer pushes me open. As the month goes on, the petals will fall, shedding parts of me I no longer need.

I wish for Summer each day until it arrives. Now here I am, in the heart of August, thinking, “This is my favorite month.” But I am worried that’s no longer true.

I can’t think of August without thinking about two years ago. When two very special people died. It was also the last time I saw my sister’s partner, and my friend, Austin, alive on my 24th birthday. It isn’t so simple to claim her as my favorite like I used to.

The taste August now brings is salty from the many tears I shed that year. Instead of being salty from playing in the ocean.

I told a friend that, August two years ago betrayed my trust. Like she was my childhood best friend who I found out slept with my boyfriend. We had a good thing going for so long. She taught me how to braid my hair and told me I looked pretty in that flower dress I was too insecure to wear.

I never thought she would be a part of some of my life’s most horrible memories.

Throughout my twenties, I have often felt like waking up in my brain feels like a room that has been rearranged in my sleep. The furniture is all the same but it’s not how I originally designed it to be. And I am not very happy with the new rearranging.

It feels disorienting growing up as someone who always felt so sure of who I am. In many ways, I haven’t changed, at five years old I knew I wanted to be an author. By thirteen I knew I wanted my nose pierced, by fifteen I knew I wanted tattoos.

I am still here writing, I have my nose pierced, and I have a full sleeve of tattoos. All of which I still feel certain I should have done. I have always been proud of having a clear vision of who I will be but lately, it gets blurrier and blurrier.

I believed for a long time that I didn’t like country music, now I love it. I used to think I was only attracted to athletes, but now I stay away from them. Or I used to claim I hated pizza, and now I crave it. These are small things, but feels important to notice.

Don’t get me wrong I love to be an everchanging, growing, and learning person. I don’t want to stay the same forever. But some parts of me I enjoyed, I attached to my personality and I never thought those would change.

Perhaps, I am misremembering. Before two years ago, maybe August wasn’t always as good as I thought it was. I reflect on her and remember how she sometimes felt like a long goodbye. “August is the Sunday of Summer,” people say but I used to fight hard and disagree with that statement.

I believe I still loved August back when it meant the start of school. I would be sad summer was ending but excited to go school supply shopping. To pick out different binders for each class, and organize my pencil case. Often early birthday presents included a shopping spree of new back-to-school clothes.

My birthday was always the final fun event before the start of the new school year. New classes, new schedules, new shoes, maybe a new haircut. The energy of the month was filled with hope and anticipation.

As a child, Summer used to mean spending a month staying at my grandparents at the beach. Where my sister and I would refuse to wear sunscreen, swim in the pool, and take the golf cart to go feed my cousin's horses down the street.

A break in the mundane routine, a time of freedom, a time of relaxation.

Sure, now I could go on a week-long summer trip and miss out on work but then I won’t be able to pay certain bills. Traveling is awfully expensive, in case you haven’t heard. I am barely scraping by working three jobs and none of them get PTO. A nice summer vacation is no longer realistic. Hopefully one day I can afford one again. Not having money ruins a lot of life, and takes away from what Summer used to be. Back when I never had to think about booking a stupid expensive Airbnb.

Anyway, I miss what August used to be, of course, I do.

I am fighting with my memories to still hold on to the bright pieces of August. It feels like it’s slipping through my sweaty palms. It can’t just be a reminder of death, nostalgia, and final hugs. It used to be so much more lovely, I thought.

I don’t even know why it matters to me so much to still love this month. But it does bother me deeply if it’s true that I don’t love August like I used to.

I admit, I have often felt I can’t pick a favorite anything. My favorite color is sometimes yellow, orange, cranberry, or light blue, it all depends I can’t say one for sure. I never know what my favorite show is, or what my favorite song is. Yet, somehow I used to be so certain August was my favorite month.

I should just learn to accept, that no month will be perfect. This year I have had some beautiful summer days, and then I have had some pretty shitty ones. Thats life, and I logically know that it’s always been a blend of good and bad days. Logic aside, my heart still waited for August to come all year long, with high hopes of some miraculous joy she’d bring me. But she doesn’t feel the same.

August now feels like a friend I forgot how to talk to.

The one thing I hope to feel sure of, in this world of uncertainty, is what I believe in. And I do believe I am confident in myself. Even though I keep changing my mind on random things. I am confident in the fact that my opinions will always change.

I don’t believe confidence is believing you're the hottest person in the room, instead, it’s accepting who you are as a flawed person. It doesn’t matter what you look like, it’s allowing yourself to be authentically you.

However, to be authentic you must first get to know yourself.

This popular meme above, I included because I think it applies to this essay.

I have always been unsure of how it is interpreted. On the one hand, I agree. If you are constantly thinking about how you’re looking, how you’re being perceived, or how cool you are, thats a problem.

But on the other hand, I disagree, because I don’t think many people truly know themselves. I think many young people, specifically, just float through life and rarely think about themselves from a curious perspective. To me, one of the most interesting parts of being alive is getting to know yourself. Over and over again.

They say that you grow from a caterpillar to a butterfly and thats the end. But I think the truth is, you grow from a butterfly to a hawk, to a hummingbird, to a fox, to a squirrel. And so on, and so on. You never stop changing, and you shouldn’t.

As betrayed and confused as I feel about the rooms in my mind being reorganized. I on the other hand, after the anger goes away, it turns into fascination. And I sit and wonder why it’s changed. Or in this case, I sit on my couch with my snoring dog to the left and write to figure out why I don’t love August as much as I used to.

I have always viewed writing, as a way to ask questions, never as a way of looking for a concrete answer. As I bring up valid points, I am still unsure what my answer to the question of if I still would define August as my favorite month would be.

I know August will always be a symbol of the start of a new year in my life. I will always be grateful to August for all the joy she’s brought me before. Despite the adulthood I am stuck in, and all the trauma that has changed the kind of love I feel for her. She helped bring me into this world, and for that I am lucky.

Plus, besides me, I know many other wonderful humans that August gave birth to. I think there is magic in the month. Even if I don’t feel it as much as I used to. It’s created some very special people, even though it also took some away.

I could never hate August.

I am trying to forgive her.

I am learning to accept all the changes.

And I know once September comes, the countdown for August will begin again. Because even though I don’t know if it’s my favorite month anymore. She used to be my very close friend. Yes, she betrayed me but I am someone who will always love my friends. No matter what they have done.