FASHION Magazine

I have never loved summer. Growing up as a chubby teen bookworm with an as-yet-undiagnosed sun allergy, I dreaded it. It’s a time when nerds will invariably be forced into outdoor physical activity, summer camp and other allegedly halcyon seasonal staples we are just not very good at. I just wanted to hang out in the shade, reading or chatting to other dorks who, like me, were easily winded and didn’t like mosquitos.

Back then, summers made me feel deficient: I never had enough enthusiasm, speed, energy or sunscreen. Counselors and parents would offer their well-meaning but ultimately, to me, horrifying encouragement from the side of the pool or on the trail, or wherever else: “Come on, it’s fun!” “You’re doing great!” Or, worst: “Good try!” And I did, eventually, kind of try. I got used to carrying SPF65 everywhere I went and figured out the kind of gentle camp activities I could get behind: canoeing, archery, arts and crafts. I felt like an interplanetary explorer, boldly going where to be honest everyone else already had been and was enjoying themselves. Like a chubby Neil Armstrong in Northern Getaway, I was exploring summer.

But as our bodies changed and their meanings changed with them, so did the meaning of the season. All of a sudden I wasn’t lacking; I had too much. Too much stomach, too much leg hair, too much ass. The enthusiastic (if demoralizing) screams of well-meaning camp counselors encouraging me to be more, do more, try more were replaced with a more insidious whisper: be less, wear less, take up less space. I was doing it all wrong again, for entirely different reasons.