june 2025

i sit at the dinner table looking at my mother.

its been a couple days since i came back from college for the summer, and i could already feel the weight of the next three months.

    in college, i ate most of my meals with my friends. 

    it was a break from countless hours of studying, where we laughed and talked about our days over pasta from the dining hall and water from the nearest water fountain.

    it wasn't much - the food was bland and often the same as the day before - but it felt like the universe was opening up to us.

    it felt like magic, how i found a family so far from home.

    my friends - they make me laugh. spending time with them, sharing meals or side adventures or a coffee with them felt so beautiful every. single. time. even though we did it everyday.

but here, back at home, hearing my mother tell me that she hates it when i talk at the dinner table broke my heart.

for the past nine months my every dinner had been filled with laughter and joy. 

and i knew that for the next three months my dinners would be filled with silence and hurt. 

i sat there that day, knowing that i would take the dining hall pasta again and again if it meant being able to spend time with people who love me as much as i love them.

i understand it is unreasonable. 

its unreasonable to compare my mother, a broken and tired woman to my college friends, people who are young and hopeful.

but is it wrong to want the relationship most important to me to be full of love?

is it wrong for me to wish that i actually enjoyed the time i spent with my mother?

in college, i rarely went to my room to sleep. at night, i slept 5-6 hours daily. i was occasionally tired, but never of life. 

but here, as the days passed by, i started to sleep in till later. my naps after work became longer, and i would do anything to avoid going downstairs. 

i became a different type of tired, one that sleep was not able to fix. 

maybe one day i will have a nice summer. 

when its late at night, when the ceiling fan is whirring and the windows are open and i am lying in bed, i dream.

i dream of a summer where i can go outside. where my everyday is not just sleeping and going to work.

a summer where i can make art, where i can see my friends, where i can explore. 

i dream of a summer of flip flops, paints, swimming, tanning, and learning. 

i dream of sitting outside on the porch and talking to someone. i dream of picnic blankets and stargazing and game nights and all nighters and laughing so hard that the whole house rings with laughter.

i dream of a summer where i am not afraid to speak, a summer spent in the downstairs of the house, a summer where my heart does not feel like its physically breaking. 

i promise to myself, that when i am older and away from here, that i will make every summer beautiful. i promise to myself that i will never let anyone yell at me ever again, not when its summer. i promise no one will be able to tie me down or tell me what i can and cannot do.

i promise, that at the end of the day when its time for me to journal, i will have a life where there are more good things than bad things to write about.

i promise myself this.

summer, but five years ago

 i want those summer days with blue skies and the smell of cut grass back.

we would go on long walks, for hours. 

we would talk about pointless topics, the meaning of life, the science of the world, and it was like our conversations would touch every point of the universe.

those days were comfort and contentedness, happiness despite the sadness in the core of my body and soul.

i want those day back, where the windows would be left open, the curtains swaying in the warm breeze, my loved ones at the table swinging our legs and laughing at each other's stories. 

there would be the soft hum of the air conditioning, the soft melodies of hindi music from the radio. 

the rhythmic chop chop chop of the knife cutting carrots, the sizzling of oils and spices, the chirps of birds. 

the sunlight would stream in, bringing its warmth and light into the house, the light making all of our faces glow a golden brown.

the sweet taste of biscuits and chai, the time ticking by.

i would sway as the music played, my mouth would tug at its corners as they joked and i would feel waves of tears when we shared our pain.

we would feel like family on those summer days, like a whole, real family and i miss that, i really do.

other days we would play badminton.

one of us would hit the birdie, and it would fly up, up, up to the clouds and we would watch in awe as the birdie touched heights we would never reach.

we would stretch our limbs and run backwards, with not a single thought in our heads except ‘i must hit the birdie’ and we would swing.

even the earth seemed so happy on these days- the flowers swaying in the wind, the sky all sorts of beautiful hues, the water shimmering in the sunlight as if there was glitter in the water.

even the sun seemed reluctant to go down, and it would stay even after dinnertime, watching us go on about our lives together.

i want those summer days back.