Summer Reinvention – Living, Not Enduring

Imagine being a blind person, with no sense of perspective. Drops of rain land on your head, your neck, your arms and you swing your head wildly to find the source, not knowing that the rain comes from a cloud above you. You reach for a glass of milk that is more than a mile away, you bend to pet a kitten that is feet away from you. Without perspective, you lose your orientation, and walk into walls you do not know are there.

You are supported by what you think is near; in reality, the objects that keep you up are thousands of miles away. You do not experience the full flavor of life, but you endure. The only things that will stand by you are insubstantial, merely mist, unable to be seen, heard, or touched. Passing through middle school made me open my eyes to the way I’m living and the world around me. I passed these three years, especially eighth grade, unconsciously, as if I was alive, but not enjoying every moment I had. I knew what it was like to glide through every day, every week, every month, every year as if I was in a dream, surrounded by cool mists of which nothing could pass.

To wake up half asleep and stumble through my day like that. To look at an assignment and think, “I don’t care about this. I just want to finish it so I can be unconscious later.” Those three years created the mist I was in; the perspective I had on life. I thought of just passing through life like passing through a bad night’s sleep, just tossing and turning. I learned that my mist was a barrier that couldn’t hold me up.

The sun finally came out for me and cleared the mist, leaving me clear when I saw a young child blowing bubbles. I was in the park one day when a little girl was creating bubbles from her bubble wand. I first ignored her and her silly bubbles, but when the wind blew the bubbles toward me, I saw each one of them clearly and closely. I saw shades of every color on the membrane, from the lightest blue to the darkest orange. And in that instant of staring mesmerized at the colors, I saw that life is precious and every moment of it should be cherished, not endured. In this summer, I plan to expand my finding that I should live life up to the fullest and enjoy every moment.

I will pay attention to every moment of life, not just the academic ones. Besides working on summer projects, I will use this summer to broaden my scope of life, even to the seemingly most mundane and trite factors. After all, a little girl blowing her “silly bubbles” opened my eyes and taught me to live life. I will make this summer foreverly memorable and thereby reinvent my life by enjoying all the beauties the world has to offer, even the little ones. As the popular teenaged saying says, “You only live once.” Now, imagine being a blind person who has suddenly regained the ability to see.

You are mesmerized by the colors, by the shapes. You cannot stop staring at the most common objects, a wooden pencil, a clump of dirt, a book. You have perspective and now marvel at the glass next to you, the walls around you, the kitten meowing and sitting on your foot. The mist that holds you, your way of living, is gone. You can now live life to the fullest, cherish every moment to the extremes. The sun has come out.