summer

           
.........summer and i used to be such good friends. every morning when i awoke, i would breathe in the scent of a summer morning, a thrill with the possibilities of the day. i experienced freedom and carelessness in the form of long, hot days, taking wild flights of fancy. the hill in my backyard became a magical staircase that i could climb up and down, taking me through different lands and times. i led a group of wide eyed little girls on adventures conjured out of our own minds, filters that caught bits of that fascinatingly obscure thing called the real world and created bits of magic where the holes were. my little neighborhood and the people in it were all i needed to feed the universe inside my head. i was happy to pretend that the neighbor's trampoline was a stage and i was a famous dancer, or that the swimming pool was an ocean and i was a moonlight mermaid being rescued by a handsome sailor. sometimes we made lemonade. sometimes i spent the whole day lost in a book. sometimes i stayed inside and watched movies with my grandma. summer evenings were the best time, and we ran around the neighborhood breathless in the cool twilight for as long as our parent's would let us stay out, and sighed at the unfairness of the world when we had to go in and everyone else got to stay.
  i miss those summers.
but lately, summer feels like a prison. the long days that turn into long weeks are filled with loneliness, and wishing for things that i don't have. i spend my days reading, filling my diary with useless scribbles, and crying over lost things. friendships, joy in the simple things, and the wonderful ability of a child's imagination to make you content anywhere. i miss it. i miss being able to add romance to any situation. if i were to be in one of my old imaginations now, i would imagine myself as a princess, locked in the highest tower imaginable, looking down at the loveliness, joy and simplicity that is the world, longing to taste it for myself. but trapped, gazing out between thick metal bars, so strong that they seem impenetrable. the princess of course, is beautiful, with tragic blue eyes, and long silky hair the color of the midnight sky, but she is lonely and heartbroken inside. she waits for a prince, who is off in a faraway land, having grand adventures and saving the world. her heart aches with missing him, and she dreams of going on adventures herself, fighting dragons. or...saving children and lighting people's hearts on fire.
my prison is self made, and the bars are only as thick as i allow them to be. i am working diligently to break out, little by little, one bit at a time. it's always easy to build these prisons, but if you let them become strong enough, breaking them down is a much harder process. but i can do it and i will, with the help of a loving Heavenly Father. and in the meantime, i'm going to go out and ask summer if she wants to be friends again.