I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way

(all photos taken by either my dad or myself. Outfit: romper - Ross, hat - garage sale)

It’s as hard to fall out of a routine as it is to adjust to one. I’ve been falling out of a routine of high school and I’ve been falling into a routine of summer.

It’s hard when you’re accustomed to an ever present burden on your back that suddenly isn’t there anymore, like when a tooth falls out and you can’t stop sliding your tongue over the empty place where it used to be. That burden is gone, never feeling its full weight until it was finally lifted from my aching back.

Suddenly, standing in the bright Florida sunshine and sparkling beaches, you have to wonder to yourself what you were so damn stressed about. Why little things mattered so much to you, why you stressed, and angst-ed, and emo-ed over…nothing.
Anxious phantoms that now dissolved in the sunlight, hidden demons that now fled from the vivid sun.

It’s…weird.

I’m shell shocked.
My restless brain still churns out nightmares of exams and projects and tests and studying, unable to cope with a stress-less existence.
A cranial allergy.
Like when the body creates an immune response to pollen or pet dander, thinking that it needs to protect the body from a pathogen or disease; a nonexistent threat. (I learned that in biology class.)
That’s why my mind won’t let me go and turn me loose.
A nonexistent threat.

But they don’t teach you how to live in school, how to enjoy life, how to enjoy summer. There’s no class for that.
But I’m learning, slowing. Coming back into the world, rediscovering the meaning of “fun” and “happiness”.

I’m learning.