the summer i learned nothing

summer is supposed to transform you. at least, that’s what i’ve always believed

Summer is supposed to transform you. At least, that’s what I’ve always believed - that life shifts with the seasons, almost like the air itself whispers what the next chapter should look like.

Fall, for me, feels like comfort. Like clockwork, it brings my old rewatches (read: rituals) back into rotation: Gilmore Girls, Harry Potter, Twilight. They’re not just shows or movies anymore - they’ve become seasonal markers, like how the air gets a little crispier. It also used to mean the start of a new school year. That always carried its own reinvention - the little “rebrands” I’d put myself through, that I’d somehow be a better version of myself than I was last year. Now that this is officially my first fall without classes, I’m curious to see how it will unfold. What does fall mean when it’s no longer tethered to academia? I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Winter, though - winter is my favourite. It holds my birthday month, which already makes it feel like mine, but it’s also the season when I feel lighter, happier, somehow freer. The air feels sharper, evenings grow quieter, and the fits are the best! Every winter, without fail, something good happens to me. Something significant enough to end the year on a high note, as if winter insists on being my personal season of hope. Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s just me choosing to notice the magic more during this time - either way, it’s the season that grounds me in joy.

Spring is trickier. While the world blooms, I almost always find myself tested. Every spring, without fail, a new challenge surfaces in my life. It’s like the universe sets something in my path the moment the flowers start to push through the soil. And while I do get through it, the season still carries that sense of struggle, of being stretched thin.

And summer? Well, summer is unpredictable. Some years it’s the best time of my life. Others, it’s the hardest. Three months that either make me feel the most fulfilled or burn me out entirely. But this summer? This summer was neither.

This summer was… nothing.

It wasn’t spectacular or disastrous, not even life-changing in the way some moments sometimes are. It was mundane and just flat. Normally, by the end of a season, I can trace a lesson that I’ve carried with me. But this time, as I tried to look back, my mind went quiet. Radio silence.

Where’s the growth, then? My so-called evolution as a human being? The only thing I thought I learned was to trust my gut. But now even that feels shaky. I guess time will tell if mine were right - or if they’ll unravel into heartbreak.

I keep thinking about something Conrad Fisher (aka the sweetest boy ever) said in season 3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty. His therapist told him he needed to be better at uncertainty. That he had to stop trying to control everything. And honestly, so do I.

I’m terrible at uncertainty. The idea that aspects of my life might be in someone else’s hands, that I can’t control the outcome - it honestly makes my skin crawl. But certainty isn’t much kinder either. Because how certain is anything, really? Even when it feels permanent, life has a way of proving otherwise.

So this summer, I tried to experiment with not knowing. To sit in the unknown. To let things play out without forcing an answer. Has it worked? I couldn’t tell you. Maybe the seeds I planted will bloom in fall or winter. Maybe they’ll rot in the soil. Maybe I’ll circle back and say, “F*ck you, uncertainty sucks.” I don’t know yet.

Beyond that little mental experiment, what did I do this summer? I threw myself into the corporate world, and let me tell you, the internet is right, corporate is a beast. It taught me plenty, but it was all work-related, nothing that really cracked me open as a person.

I took a short trip to visit friends out of town. It was sweet, fleeting, imperfect in the way real life always is. And somewhere in between, I fell deeply and irrevocably in love with Conrad Fisher - which, admittedly, isn’t a personal milestone so much as a comforting distraction.

So perhaps I didn’t learn anything this summer. Maybe not every season demands transformation. Maybe some seasons are just pauses - little stretches of time where you’re meant to simply exist.

And I guess that’s the point. We live in a world that constantly demands growth, like we have to come out of every chapter with a takeaway. If you don’t have a lesson, was the time wasted? But maybe life isn’t a constant climb upward. It could be more like breathing: inhale, exhale, hold. Some seasons are the inhale - full of energy, ideas, movement. Others are the exhale - letting go, releasing, learning. And some, like this summer, are simply the hold. A suspended moment in between.

There’s a kind of comfort in allowing yourself to just… be. To not chase a moral of the story. To not rush to pin meaning on every memory. It’s uncomfortable, yes - because stillness often feels like stagnation - but maybe it’s also necessary. Maybe these pauses are what give the lessons of other seasons their depth.

And perhaps that’s what this summer was for me. A holding breath.