As an April baby, I’ve always glorified summer growing up. April has always been my favorite month, mainly because I was born on this month. April is also the peak of the Philippine dry season, which Filipinos like to call “summer” (which is technically incorrect, but I digress). Because of these circumstances, I’ve become rather fond of summertime, and everything we associate with it — vacations, beaches, days where we experience more hours of sunlight, etc.
Recently, though, I’ve become less… enthusiastic about the summer months for a couple of reasons. One is the heat. Man, the heat has grown more and more intolerable these past few years. I’m not going to ramble about Global Warming here, but yeah. This heat man. It makes the aforementioned summer activities rather unpleasant unless you do them early in the morning or late in the afternoon, which I feel is a waste of time. Holing up somewhere cool until the heat is less… murderous… no thanks.
Also, social media has kind of bummed the whole summer experience up as well. Note, I am extremely guilty of the old-man rant I’m about to give. As I’ve mentioned earlier, summer is THE time for vacations at the beach or somewhere trendy. Because of the age we live in, where we have to post literally everything on the internet, summertime activities have become a virtual pissing contest (oftentimes subconsciously, but for some individuals, very, very consciously).
See your friend’s Instagram post where they do some weird ass pose by the beach? Or your friend’s Facebook album where they’re in some crowded tourist trap? You just feel the urge to top all that with better, more pretentious photos. It’s human nature. It happens all the time. These feelings are just exacerbated by the internet, where everyone can see everything. It takes a truly enlightened person to be unbothered by all the nonsense we see online.
I don’t necessarily think less of a person if they feel these feelings, as I, too, am only human and feel those same feelings. Oftentimes, however, we get to consumed by these things that we unnecessarily make ourselves feel bad. And that’s where it starts becoming less okay. The only way to combat these feelings is to minimize going online… which we all know isn’t happening lol.
So in conclusion, summer isn’t as cracked up as I used to believe. It’s not bad, but the hype it gets, especially by today’s society, is not on par with the actual collective experience we get.
Also, I can go to the gosh darn beach in the rainy season anyway. It looks more moody and poetic that way. Emo.
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