The Summer of Yes

by Courtney Walsh

The time my parents wanted me to enter my short stories in a local competition just to see. I said no. Trivia night with Ravi and his girlfriend, Sasha. No.

Nothing comes without a cost, young lady, and only you can decide if you’re willing to pay it.”

“Because times change. People change. ‘Life moves pretty fast. And if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’”

“Be fearless, mera priya,” she says. “The world needs your voice.”

Almost as if nothing made sense until I saw it in ink on the page.

As before, a mental cog falls into place and things fit. Maybe this is something I need to write for myself. It’s processing things the best way I know how. Nobody will ever see these words, so it’s safe to write it all down any way I see fit. Not for public consumption. Not to be judged. Just for me. Now, with the words out of my brain and onto the page, my mind’s machine whirs to a halt and goes quiet. And for the first time in years . . . I feel like I’m alive again.

But since the conception and implementation of the Summer of Yes, I’ve been wanting to think. And dwell. And create, and write, and dream. Maybe I should get up before the sun. Before I get coffee in the morning, I tend to have no filter.

“Listen,” she says. “I think you have to find the things that fulfill you. Energize you. No matter what life you make for yourself, find some margin for those kinds of things.”

already know what that is for me. The familiar worry spiral starts spinning. “What if you’re not good at that thing?” Her brows knit together in a straight line. “Who says you have to be good at it?” “What’s the point of doing something if you’re not good at it? And what if people think you’re crazy for trying?” She laughs. “You’re asking the wrong person,” she says. “I’ve never

“You’ll never be happy if you listen to what everyone else says about you, Kelsey. It’s what you say about you that matters.”

“My parents would say it’s what God says about you.” Her eyes flick to mine. “What does God say about you? That you should quit?” “Doesn’t sound like God, no.”

But then it occurs to me that where one lives so often determines how one lives. Am I living in the right place?

Saying yes to simple pleasures might be even more important to me than saying yes to big things. After all, it’s the little moments that make a life.

“I guess sometimes you gotta wade through uncomfortable things to get to the payoff.”

“The world is going to tell you all kinds of things about yourself. You’re not good enough or smart enough or strong enough or thin enough or rich enough or talented enough. They’ll come up with a million reasons you can’t do the thing you want to do. The thing you were born to do.” She takes a sip of water and looks at me. “They’ll tell you, ‘No, Kelsey.’ Or ‘Not at this time, Kelsey.’ Or my favorite, ‘Not good enough, Kelsey.’”

Maybe there really is more to this life than climbing ladders and shattering ceilings.

Helping other people find their story.

What if it’s wonderful?

Your dad says this is what grace looks like, but you can’t possibly know how humbling it is for me to receive it.”

Don’t wait to love the people you love. We aren’t guaranteed a second chance—we’re only lucky enough to seize one when it comes.”

I’ve dared to hope for the things I want, rejecting the worst-case scenario—that dreaded voice of doom that accompanies every exciting thing.

“The other thing I’ve learned, and I want you all to listen closely,” she continues, “is that life . . . is good. And wonderful. And horrible, and beautiful, and messy, and everything all at once. And that is the beauty of it. It’s overwhelming, but it’s never boring. And it should be lived to the fullest. “And no, that doesn’t mean the biggest car or the best condo. It doesn’t mean a house in the Hamptons or a promotion at work. It means filling your life with the people you love, doing the things that make you feel the most alive.”