Early summer nights like this one are of my favorite kind. The sky is clear, the stars are shining luminously above, and there is just enough humidity in the air to add a noticeable amount of frizz to my already untamed curly hair. As I sit comfortably outside the fragrance of honeysuckles waft around in the gently breeze mixing with the lingering smell of freshly cut grass from the neighbor's yard from late this afternoon. There are lightning bugs meandering their way to and fro, scattered across my yard out of sync with the songs of the crickets and frogs hiding among the bushes.
There's a word for this kind of feeling, and two words come to mind. Tranquility. Tranquility laced with the pain and want of summers that have long since been forgotten: nostalgia.
I'm reminded of the summer nights spent with my parents and their closest friends that I took for granted as a child. All of the memories that have since been put out of my head are brought rushing back to the forefront of my mind, and all I can do is sit with myself trying to piece back together all the valuable times I had lost.
Why would nights like this be my favorite, you ask? Simply put, I suppose it's because of the serenity of the environment, but also there is a kind of beauty in the pain. It's a reflection of the person I was and the person I became. I've learned so much since then, as one would expect to happen over the course of growing up. I see now how often I took these nights for granted and now appreciate them. I can look back and smile about the childhood I had, because although it may not have been perfect, I was blessed to experience what I did. I can remember chasing the fireflies in the yard, playing badminton in the early evening as well as any group of uncoordinated children could,and playing hide-and-seek in the clearing beside the house. It wasn't much, but it's something I'm grateful for, even if the pain of it and the people associated with the memories are gone.
