I Did Not Have a Hot Girl Summer

Someone just asked me how my summer was in an Instagram DM. I mulled over the question, debating how I could insert some sort of wit, glam, or straight up fabulousness into a fabricated answer. But being that it was past midnight and I’m wasn't feeling like typing a fabulous fabrication type answer, I did something bold. I told the truth: “Not really how I envisioned it, but it was okay. Kinda bummed it’s over but I do love the Almost Famous fall fashion.” (reference to Kate Hudson’s dope fur coat)

Summer 2023 was not how I envisioned it. At all. I moved home from Florida on April 14th, exactly 111 years to the day the Titanic sank. Except I didn’t think I was sinking. I boarded that plane departing from the West Palm Beach airport with a weight lifted off my chest. “You’re going to be okay now. You’re going to go home to Pennsylvania and your depression will go away.” I wasn't just going to float, I was going to soar.

That notion should have sank with the Heart of the Ocean.

Yes, I did move into what the Wilkes-Barre area would consider a “dope apartment” in the city's excuse of a downtown. I can brag about having high ceilings, countless windows to create a bright area, new floors, central air, and above all: no fucking carpeting. On 4th of July I skipped barbecues and spent the day decorating it with economically priced canvas wall art featuring bold roses and Los Angeles cityscapes but hey, I think it looks good.

But the space is also a cocoon of loneliness. The notion of driving a good twenty minutes away from my parents’ house and any friends I have left in town will seem overwhelming and then the couch ends up swallowing me along with any pangs of sadness surfacing.

Aside from my apartment, the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day was a majority of overly hot days blurred with mood instability and inability to concentrate with intermittent rain storms that always seemed to come when I finally had my shit together to get to the pool near my parents’ condo. Summer was med changes for breakfast with fatigue for lunch and uncontrolled tears for dinner. To self-medicate, something I impulsively indulge in, I found Stateside vodka + sodas at the liquor store. I finally found my canned seltzer along the sea of White Claw’s, Truly’s, and those Topo Chico’s everyone started slamming.

Let's address the whole social life thing: when you're in your 30s living in the small town where you grew up, your friends have little accessories called children to take care of. So it’s not as though I can text them last minute demanding a Happy Hour outing, or Sunday Funday, a requisite activity in the syllabus of a traditional Hot Girl Summer. Or there were friends, ehm, a friend, who did the unspeakable of a traditional Hot Girl Summer: she got a boyfriend. And what’s worse, he’s great so I can’t even complain about him. But it was still an invasion of Hot Girl Summer.

Considering the following:

• Seeing a cringe off-Broadway show where the star’s high pitched, whiny voice made me shovel question the whole theater experience

• Watching NASCAR at the Pocono Raceway for enough laps that I needed to sneak away from my friends, two couples of course, and go off the premises in an Uber,

• A disaster of a date in Philadelphia that makes me never want to go on a first date again where I was forced to watch children ride bikes… soberly

• Being ghosted by an embarrassing amount of potential clients and job leads after sending proposals and having multiple rounds of interviews

• Receiving a concerning number of unrequited Hinge likes from profiles depicting clear evidence dental care was not a top priority, but showing off dead fish memorabilia was

• A date with a divorced man whose wife has a restraining order against him. To quote him - “...but that’s okay, those [restraining orders] aren’t permanent and like, she just wanted me out of the house that’s why she got it.”

• Said date also met my friends and bragged about having his own friends that have the accomplishment of running a prostitution ring under their belt

• Coke Can boomeranging enough to the point where my therapist referred to him as needing to “sh*t or get off the pot.”

Essentially, I’ve walked around feeling about as settled as a hungry toddler and as high strung as Cruella DeVille since the high of coming home wore off right around 72 hours after my plane landed in Avoca. Hey, at least I didn’t sink like the Titanic did.

And maybe that possibility isn’t so far off. Running over the Pierce St. bridge still terrifies me with its tiny path for pedestrians. I’m always convinced the weight of my stride will one day cause the entire structure to crumble (nevermind the fact the cars that drive over it weigh more than I do, that’s besides the point), and I’ll fall to my demise in the brown, completely shallow and undrinkable water below me.

Even muggy runs couldn’t save me from myself. I’d come back to my downtown apartment drenched, dehydrated, and not at all re-invigorated. Instead, I just felt large due to gaining weight from increasing a mood stabilizer dosage, or sad because I hadn’t completely changed my life in 90 days like a real Boss Lady you see memes about on Instagram. Instead, I’m still questioning, “How did I get here?” followed by the immediate “How am I ever going to get out?” and then the worst of all: “Am I ever going to get out?”

The thoughts are rude and intrusive, it means Auntie Anxiety is visiting with her bone crushingly heavy luggage. But now that my Not Hot Girl Summer is over, she can f*ck off and I can move in a positive direction.