The Earned Summer
Graduating college did not really feel real until twelve months after I graduated.
Immediately after graduation, everything still felt normal. I was excited to start my career, but was destined to make the most of my last real summer. I booked a one-way ticket to Asia and spent two months traveling before I ran out of money and moved to New York City to join SeatGeek.
Work in this first year has been what I expected. I was excited to learn when I first started, and being in an office felt new and energizing. But then winter came. After spending the first 22 years of my life in California, I experienced my first real winter. It was cold, dark, and long.
As the city started to thaw, I felt myself waiting for something that was never coming. In school, I had been trained to work hard for eight months and then receive a long break. Summer was part of the deal. But in adult life, summer did not arrive with freedom attached to it. I still had work the next day, regardless of the weather outside. I knew this was coming before I started work, but I didn’t expect how impactful it would be in my transition from college to postgrad.
That was when I started noticing how my coworkers, and New Yorkers more broadly, treated summer. People took advantage of every ray of sunlight. A Shake Shack burger during lunch suddenly felt meaningful. Sitting on a park bench in Madison Square Park after work, listening to live music, became a real plan. The city felt alive because everyone understood that this season was temporary. The intentionality of summer was something I was experiencing for the first time.
In Southern California, good weather is the default. In New York, summers are earned. The harsh winter gives people permission to respect it. It creates an urgency around each warm night, each drink outside, and each walk home without a jacket.
As summer starts to wind down, the people of New York City know it can end at any moment, this forces people to be intentional.
This last summer was my first earned summer, where I was the most present I’ve been. Work, winter, and the city changed how I understood the season. Summer was no longer a break handed to me by a school calendar. It was something I had to notice, protect, and enjoy in the margins of everyday life.