For many City College students, summer is a time of transformation, exploration, and learning. As the ball begins to roll for the fall 2023 semester, the editors wanted to share about their summer experiences, lessons, and memories from the summer.

Claire Geriak

During this past summer, I was very lucky to visit some beautiful places in Italy with my family. A habit I have developed over the years is having my phone out all the time and taking pictures of everything, and not really grounding myself in my environment. I made it a goal to journal almost every day on my trip, which was hard for the first few days. However, when I look back on my entries today, I read moments that I would have forgotten elsewhere. 

Reading my past journal entries has provided me with examples of  “all things must pass,” and has taught me that things passing doesn’t always have to be a negative experience. I used to resent feeling emotional or flustered, to the point where I would try to distract myself or convince myself that everything was okay. 

Journaling has allowed me to look at my struggles from a different perspective and accept that hardships come and go every day, but they always pass.

Angel Corzo

I stood in my living room, surrounded by nobody yet accompanied by every self-pitying thought.

Struggling to find contentment, I resorted to breaking down. 

After a week of nostalgia, a sense of reality consumed me: I had become more aware of my aging. 

I had gone from summers of endless days and nights, where everything and everyone was at my disposal, to the summer of 2023, where routine was either my salvation or demise.

This distinction left me asking myself, “When did I grow up?”

As hard as it was to grasp, I realized I was too caught up going through the motions to see my childhood drift away from me, and inevitably be met with what is now my emerging adulthood.

In a moment’s time, I tried to resolve all the inconsistencies in my life.

I failed.

However, I failed for good reason.

As unwelcoming as it felt, all I could do was accept–accept that what my life has become is just as valuable as the lives I had lived in the past.

I cannot be a kid forever, and it’s a hard truth, but that’s okay. 

I know somewhere out there, my younger self is happy to know I have come this far, so why shouldn’t I be happy now?

Delaney Newhouse

I was completely out of breath as I walked up the hill, even though I was trying to hide it.

“I’ve been feeling much better,” I told my mother, lying between deep gulps of air. She walked leisurely next to me, her eyes fixated on the wagging tails of the two dogs whose leashes we were holding. I hoped she didn’t look over to me. She’d have been able to see my exhaustion if she did.

The conversation that followed was difficult. A part of me had been dreaming of fleeing Santa Barbara and never looking back since the day I moved here, and the university acceptance letters I had received in the spring seemed like the tickets to my future I had been waiting for.

Of course, my luck had to be such that my acceptance letters came concurrently with a mess of illness. By the time registration had come, I was still being shuffled between various doctors, hoping to understand what exactly had caused my body to suddenly break down.

In the end, preserving my health won out over my ambitions. The taste of defeat, even one as temporary as this, was bitter. Despite that, I’m hoping to turn that defeat into an opportunity.

Sofia Stavins

On a beautiful Monday evening, during one of the most beautiful sunsets my eyes have seen, my best friends and I decided to jump into the ocean. There was something about this specific moment that just stuck with me. It gave me a new found sense of appreciation for the life I am living.

As someone coming from a place where I could only swim in lakes, getting to feel the soft sand between my toes and having ocean waves hit my face is something I will never get over. Laughter filled the air as we dove into the water and floated on our backs watching the seagulls soar through the sky. Being able to see the mountain’s shadow peak through the clouds just added to the beauty.

I think going into the ocean with people is one of the most intimate things you can do. Just being with loved ones in the heart of nature is something that will never fail to fill my body with joy.