The summer that never ends

Summer — or for many school kids, the two-month holiday period that historically covered the months of April and May. One that, as a young child, I looked forward to after 10 months of books, assignments, and exams. My summers were filled with workshops varying from ballet, taekwondo, swimming, to arts classes.

These were intertwined with week-long stays at my aunt’s house in Parañaque or sweating it out in our made-up version of “Survivor” with physical and eating challenges at my grandparents’ backyard in Tanay. In our downtime, my sister and I would devour generous servings of halo-halo every day at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon as we vegetated on our couch and watched TV or played Dance Dance Revolution, Crash Bandicoot, or Tekken 3 with our cousins. I remember being 10 years old in the early 2000s feeling excited to go back to school and seeing my classmates again as summer came to an end.

At 18, I spent eight weeks volunteering at a developmental project overseas while the semester was off for the summer. Eight weeks filled with project work and facilitation, weekend adventures to tourist spots, and daily exploration of the city streets and food with other fellow volunteers from across the globe.

I celebrated my first birthday away from home with my newfound friends and with family on a video call. It was my first time to be away from my family on foreign soil, and it was the time we discovered video calls to stay connected. It was a liberating experience and opened my mind to the highs and lows of solo adventure. For years, I planned and looked forward to my next big one.

At 25, summer was condensed into weekend getaways scattered throughout the year. At times, it would be week-long trips if I was lucky to book in some time off work. Annual leaves were strategically plotted with public holidays to get as much relaxation as my time and budget allowed. My friends and I would always complain how we have the money but no time to actually go on a two-month summer holiday.

No dull time, no time to laze around on the couch, always on the go, always on with inboxes brimming with emails ticked with “High Importance” asking for attention. It was both the anticipated and accepted norm for a generation raised and shaped by the need to achieve, to be productive, to maximize life — all in the pursuit of one’s best self. We danced with responsibilities and a constant yearning for a pause to reignite the fire before it fully goes out.

Now, at 28, summer is seemingly endless with no clear way out. One being spent at my parents’ home after three years of living away from their comfort, bingeing on old and new TV shows, listening to podcasts, reading books that have sat unturned by my bedside for months, having online chats with friends about our routinized lives and video calls with Stephen about the many thoughts that fill our minds. The proverbial rainy day has arrived. Work, as is life, has been put on hold at the moment for many of us. Interrupted, disrupted, derailed.

And yet I’d like to believe that with this startling pause also comes the eternal promise of summer—warmth, rejuvenation, and adventure. I find warmth in the steaming hot nilagang baboy that my father so lovingly prepares for lunch, and in my mother’s firm yet reassuring voice in the next room as she steers her department’s work amid the uncertain and challenging environment that we are all in.

I find relief in the silly texts that I get from my sister who lives next to the hospital where she ensures her patients are recovering to full health every day. I have revisited the simple joy and reawakening effects of quiet morning walks as a way to fill in the time and to remind my legs that they continue to serve a purpose. I have learned to crawl through my life’s current adventure, which is happening right in the depths of my mind. I feel lucky to be healthy and alive and to be spending much needed time with my parents.

I still look forward to the time that summer ends to embark on a new project, a new relationship, a new adventure. As to when this summer might end no longer fazes me as much as it did more than a month ago, when I hurriedly jumped on the last plane back to Manila before international borders closed down. Time surely does not fail to unfold acceptance as each day passes by.

Like the rest of the world, I also have no clear idea as to how the other end will look like. But one thing I am most certain of and hope to be true — this summer will live in us forever, as did the many summers in the past. Its promises of warmth and renewal are etched much deeper than any scars of separation and ambiguity this season is causing. We will be all right, and we will move forward with it.

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Karla Caraan, 28, is a product specialist at an airline.