EPISTOLARY PURGATORY

It is late spring in New York as I write this. The trees outside have already turned green and full. It is warm; a fan in my room is turned on and pointed at me. I sweat profusely during my runs and don’t stop until an hour after.

Summers are a period that I strongly associate with being untethered; a vagrant trapped between school years, between jobs, between houses and between cities. It’s when all my creature comforts implode, revealing to me that they are a distraction from other monstrous problems I’m utterly incapable of addressing.

In comparison to India, where summers are nothing short of abhorrent, summers in New York are not so bad. However, the deliriously long days skew my internal rhythms. It can feel like I’m behind on things no matter how early I start my day, and the perpetual disconnect blots everything with apathy.

I have grabbed the low hanging fruits — installing black out curtains, using an air conditioner, taking cold showers, eating the right things and such. They have gotten me quite far. Still, I go through each day waiting for it to end. If I could hibernate through summer, I really would.

My social life during this time is questionable — I experience a general lack of energy, and show up sweaty everywhere. A little frazzled, a little out of breath, a little tired, a little lost. Resting in summers is an act riddled with conflict when everyone you know is outside, finding each other. The streets in New York during the summer can be equal parts picturesque and triggering. I go back home alone but struggle to fall asleep because the bed is too warm.

I write as if summers are the root of my problem, but I suspect that they are not. I’ve gone through similar (though not as painful) bouts of listlessness in the winter. February in New York can be tough too — there’s barely enough daylight to complete one chore. Communal frolicking is out of sight but occurs behind closed doors — at dinners with family, board game nights with friends, vacations and quiet movie nights with the partner. I feel left out but less pressured, leading to more restful and productive days and the resultant good feelings. The challenges of winter are also widely acknowledged, making commiseration easy.

I wish jobs offered “Winter Fridays” so I could catch last glimpses of the soft afternoon sun, and week-long summer breaks to thwart exhaustion. I wish governments and corporations would send out platitudes about loneliness, mental health and offers of support (as pointless and unhelpful as they are) during heat waves and summer solstice as they do around Christmas. I wish people in general would extend the same compassion in the summer as they do when it’s cold and dark outside.

It is a strange thing to complain and ruminate about, because summers will continue to happen every year for the rest of my life, and cause varying levels of delirium no matter where on earth I go. Nothing will change that. Materially, I expect things to only get worse with time as global temperatures rise and as more of us pump hot air into the streets with our little ACs.

My relationship with summers is downstream of my relationship with time. I constantly grieve over lost time while also feeling trapped without a sense of agency or the ability to make up for it in the present. The season makes a caricature out of this pervasive feeling. With some hard work and determination, I think I will get through it this time around, as always — and then worry about the year imminently ending (and my having nothing to show for it) when September arrives.