Fish are Jumpin’ – June 9

“To me, summer has always been about potential. This was especially true when I was in high school. Those three or so months between one school year and the next always meant change. People got taller or wider or smaller. They broke up or came together, lost friends or gained them, had life experiences that you could tell had transformed them even if you didn’t know what they were. In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible. As a teenager, I was always hoping to change, to become someone other than who I was. Each summer, I felt I had the chance to do that. All I had to do was wait and see what happened.”

                  Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

Sarah Dressen’s paragraph is my gift to you today. I can add very little that will enhance her wonderful description of summers while growing up. But I can tell you a true story. My freshman year at Evanston Township High School in Evanston, IL., I fell in love with a boy that had his locker near mine. He looked great in the short basketball pants worn in those days, and he could hit from the corner. A terrible thing happened. He went to summer school to take a biology class. There he fell in love with someone else. I didn’t know then that all I had to do was wait and see what happened. You will understand why my father said what he did, when years later, I  married that boy. “The two of you have come a long way around to get to this.”   Sarah Dessen remembers well what potential summers can have. THIS summer remember that you can change if you like, and anything is possible.

Tagged: Sarah Dessen-Along for the Ride