It is officially summer, the time of year I once wanted to hug hard and lovingly like reuniting with an old friend at a gum-pocked curb at LAX. The fun we’d have during our brief reunion was limitless in adventure potential. Those carefree wide-open summers are far behind me now. I recall my 23^rd summer, a particularly great one where I wore thong bikinis with tiny floral patterns and thin ruffled edges because they were all the rage then. I was daring. I was not self-conscious. I didn’t care what anyone thought about my summer fashions. When I look in the mirror now, I have become a woman of a “certain” age. My many relaxed days and nights of scantily dressed young adulthood were picked up at a dusty thrift store and are now being worn casually and backwards by the generation that gave me a C-section scar and I really don’t like it. 

The girl who once grinned big at the slightest sniff of shenanigans pie is now mindful that eating something dense with sugar could potentially make me feel terrible as I head to bed after watching three episodes of Succession. 

Sure, I am grateful to still be waking up each morning with no body aches and so far, I am lucky that I don’t have a lineup of medications in my bathroom that help keep me from an early death. I even quit my very brief fling with Lexapro precisely because it was making me gain weight rapidly and I noticed that I didn’t even care that I couldn’t fit into my clothes. That scared me because that brand of aloofness and personal body acceptance had never been cross-stitched into my DNA lumbar pillow. 

I am healthy and I am happy. I have a great life, family and friends. But I’m still pissed that my best years are behind me. The arrival of summer always reminds me of this. I took those youthful, glistening and bendy years for granted. Gone are the days of pinched glances from women, the brazen offers of carnal opportunity from strange men blocking my path to the restroom in dark bars and the ability to put on any piece of clothing with ease and confidence. I would walk out the door, excited and ready for anything that might unfold in the shimmering golden nights of Los Angeles. I took those things for granted. I thought we’d all be young and lovely forever. Those days are gone. Those days were grand. 

I know that I am middle aged. I think that’s what we call it. I have hit all the markers of being an obedient female adult. I have raised my kids. I have taken care of and supported my husband. I donate to causes. I recycle. I stay informed and most importantly, I vote for those who support equal rights and the continuation of a green and thriving planet. I might even be called “Woke”, because I am anything but sleepy and inattentive.

Here I am, embarking on the summer of 2024 and I am still arguing with the 25-year-old version of me. That bouncy young woman who went out nearly every night in very high heels and very tiny dresses and then somehow made it to work wearing two matching shoes the next morning, is gone. There’s that part of me that still wants to buy string bikinis, lie on the beach covered in Hawaiian Tropic with no SPF, meet a friend for sundown drinks on a groaning pier before heading to a linen shirts and flip flops house party somewhere in the warm and fragrant arms of Malibu. I have always preferred the more invigorating Los Angeles locations, Hollywood and her nearby cousins, Hancock Park, Beverly Hills and the beach cities where the was music was louder, venues were smokier and the attire was more intentionally applied to well maintained and highly perfumed bodies. 

I still wear bikinis. I ordered two new ones yesterday. I will wear them even if I’m 90 years old and they don’t match my Life Alert necklace. I won’t be able to hear the people if they’re laughing at me and my old lady bikini anyway. Maybe I will spare the future young people and not wear a thong bikini, though my memory is seared with an image from over 20 years ago of a 70-something year old woman wearing a gilded silver thong bikini on a beach in Playa del Carmen and she has stuck with me to this day. That was many summers ago, but she owned that beach on that hot Mexican shoreline. She looked pretty spectacular.

I wish I could go back to one of the thousands of Los Angeles summer nights of my youth. They were amazing even when we thought they were lame. I can smell those nights; the sun setting like a bruised peach upon the bottom lip of Santa Monica, the city responding with collective applause, the sudden lighting of outdoor candles and string lights that wound through thick magenta bougainvillea, their petals fluttering from the vibration of a new summer song that will always make you think of that time/them/him – whether you want to or not, for every summer that greets you, again and again. There were so many beautiful days and evenings when I looked and felt amazing, and I didn’t even know it. I would like to walk in that chick’s skin one more time. She did not vie for attention, she was always too busy reading the room. She should have.

I have always liked waiting for someone to arrive. I would busy myself by noticing small things to pass the time; admiring the delicate shimmer and jostle of fine ice shards in the pool of my martini glass before taking the first tart sip of a perfectly shaken Cosmopolitan. The first sip is always the best sip. I haven’t tasted that cocktail in a decade. I miss those rare moments spent alone taking in the details, just being comfortable with yourself. Looking straight into the eyes of strangers and smiling at them. There were no smart phones, just boring cell phones that got the job of communication done while you were left free to sweep the surroundings. Catch the vibe. People watching, there is nothing better. Everything and everyone is more beautiful in the summertime.

The smells of summer are always the same. Vanilla and coconut mingled with salt and limes sitting on wet wood, a chlorine chaser, lighter fluid, sticky fruit and salty lips. I wish I could go back to hang out with the me that was young and ready for anything. I would tell her she looks great in that string bikini, that she should always wear a hat outside and that smoking is absolutely disgusting and will age any face faster than anything else.

Summer is here and I want to hang out with her like I did when I was younger. Life is very short, and I am now very middle aged. I want to go somewhere popular, breezy and filled with young adults waiting for someone else to arrive. I will sit among them watching the sway of the summer air blow hair across their lacquered lips and golden-brown clavicles. I will take in the simple beauty of life, youth and the fragrance of my own perfume. I will order an icy Cosmopolitan and when it arrives, I will admire its varying shades of pinks, the exact match to the Los Angeles sunset falling around us and the very same colors as the hundreds of sunsets I laughed under during the many, many splendid summers of my youth.