Don’t we love this quote, “every summer has a story”? because it is so true. It makes us reminisce about past summers and one smiles as all of the warm memories come fleeting back. The people we meet and therefore the places we go make these four months out of the year something special and different.

From vacations under the sun to summer flings, this is often the season to relax, let go, and make memories that you simply always remember. Every day we rise and do an equivalent thing. However, in summer we can do something new or different, we will enjoy our days. I remember that at some point I read that each summer has its own story. 

I think it’s true because every summer is different, and that we can visit different places to possess fun with our family or friends, and that we can enjoy the beautiful day. What is it about summer that creates us so nostalgic? Something about June, July, and August stand out in my mind more so than any other block of time during the year. 

Let us look at some of the stories of common women. What challenges they faced and how did they solve the problems to rise once again. 

Sarah, 23: I can remember what was happening in my life in each summer past, unlike I can for the other stretch of months. The summer of 2019 changed everything. My university friends were moving abroad right before it started. One of those friends had a good job. A job that she offered to me, which I interviewed for and eventually took. I took this job because the restaurant I had been performing at and had started managing was on the brink of closing and that I knew I had to form a change. 

Everyone kept asking me when I was going to get a "real job" and stop working in a restaurant. I felt like I was letting my parents down by not using my university degree. It appeared like the subsequent logical step was to urge 9-5, with the advantages and office and commute and everything.

I remember saying good-bye to my friends. I remember thinking things were never getting to be an equivalent, and therefore the folks that I had spent the past few years of summers with were departing forever. That weekend, I locked myself abroad to do this huge project that my new boss asked me to do. I worked 10 hour days, wanting so badly to impress him. I kept thinking about how my friends were gone, and I cried so hard that I got teardrops all over the papers that I was working on. 

It was like I knew that life had just changed hugely. It felt weird to not be working during a restaurant. It felt weird to be waking up at 7:30 am every day. It felt weird to possess weekends off because that's not how your schedule works during a restaurant. I had this heavy feeling, that I had entered adult life. The fun was over. This was it.

I started hating that job pretty quick and began panicking, considering what I used to be getting to do. I hated that I had begun to measure my life by how many days I had until the weekend. A year later, the next summer, I had figured it out and began my "secret project" that is now Artwork. 

It was my answer, the sunshine at the top of the proverbial tunnel. Then the subsequent summer I quit the office job. Why is it that each significant thing in my life seems to somehow be tied to the summer?

Maria 30: I got married at the early age of 17. Three years down the lane I was a mother to two wonderful daughters. I had everything, I had a loving husband, a nice cosy place to call home; but something was missing in my life. I would spend the nights turning positions and thinking about what could have been’s. It started to take a toll on my health, I had dark circles, and I felt fatigued. I missed my passion to become a Chartered Accountant. 

It was a sunny afternoon in May when I gathered up the courage to be vocal about it. I consider my husband my soulmate and my partner so I opened up to him. He was extremely considerate. And from that summer onwards, my life changed forever. My husband being an accountant himself, helped me with studies and house chores. I started taking care of my mental and physical health by following a strict routine. 

It was difficult. The journey was full of breakdowns and meltdowns. But I gathered all the courage I had and appeared for the exams. I passed! That is right, I passed! And now you are looking at a thirty-year-old independent woman who feels complete. 

All it took was a summer of courage and determination. I changed my life with the help of my loved ones. I will be forever thankful to my husband; but mostly, I will be thankful to me, myself, and the woman I have become.  

Hannah, 25: I come from a well educated and modern family. My parents are surgeons and they work day and night in their professions. Growing up in the house of doctors, I was believed to become a doctor myself. If not a doctor then at least someone highly qualified. But my heart was somewhere else; I wanted to be a housewife! I studied in a medical university as my parents wished for; so, I was expected to start my career as a doctor but I refused. I got married to a businessman, and we lived in the middle of the city where everyone was up to something. But I wasn’t! After I got married, everyone pressurized me to start practising or to just get a hobby. Although I have always been a strong-headed person I gave up. 

I was tired of being called a useless and worthless woman. My parents would lie to their colleagues because they simply couldn’t say the word housewife. Eventually, I started practising medicine in my father’s clinic. My routine would be coming back from the clinic, ignoring all the chores and my husband, and going back to sleep. I became depressed. 

One day on a hot sunny Sunday, I was doing gardening and I broke down. I realized that how much I missed taking care of my home. And how worthless I have become. That day I went inside my room, called my father, and that was that. I quitted my job to be a housewife. 

Even today, I have no shame to admit. I respect every working woman out there, but mostly, I respect myself. 

It always looks like summer is fleeting, that it slips faraway from us somehow. In the blink of an eye, the leaves are starting to change. This summer, I'm trying hard to enjoy every moment. Tuesday Adventures will be returning! Remember those?! When I worked within the office job, my coworker and I always joked that Tuesdays were the worst days. 

Because Mondays were just bad by default, but Tuesday was even worse. So one summer ago, I started taking little mini trips with my camera. I couldn't do this last summer because I had a babysitting job, but this summer is prey. I want to visit a waterfall somewhere. 

And swim in a creek. And sketch in the woods. I'm going to get back into blogging. I'm going to stay up too late working on my art journal. I'm getting to take in every moment of sunshine, splash within the puddles, swim within the pool, take long walks, and just live.