ephemeral girl summer

why fleeting connection matters

Aug 01, 2024

2024 was supposed to be my hot girl summer.

A term often associated with partying, flirting and fun was, to me, actually more closely tied to freedom. In college, it’s too easy to be complacent: I know who I know, I do what I do, and I am who I am. I’m not the hot girl — I’m the workaholic girl. My life is as limited as I imagine it.

But during the summer? I can be anybody.

The Robertson Scholarship specifically asks that our sophomore summer is spent on exploration, dreaming beyond the limits of what we thought possible for ourselves. You can have it all. Trust yourself.

So, I set out to spend my hot girl summer unconstrained from expectations, places and people. I covered four countries, six states, and counting. I tried so many different lines of work, met so many different kinds of people, and still spent so much time with myself.

I realized: when I am unbounded, I still desire connection. And that connection, however short, can be deeply meaningful.

A summer that could’ve been spent alone and uninhibited, was instead better spent together and grounded. Hot girls let other people into their lives. They trust them.

Reaching adulthood felt like putting my foot on the gas; I haven’t stopped. Moving coasts for college, leaving said-college far too often for exciting trips, switching campuses, driving across the country, flying across the world — I’m so grateful for all that I’ve seen.

I feel most myself when I’m experiencing new things. Navigating an Icelandic glacier after growing up in a desert? I’m more capable than I believed. Fumbling through a Lotte department store in Seoul? Embarrassment is only as bad as I allow it to be. Walking Taipei’s Shilin Night Market in the pouring rain? The best encounters are by chance. I’m stripped down to the rawest version of self, forced to adapt to new circumstances and embrace new modes of living.

I suspect part of the reason I love spending time with myself is that it’s safe. There’s no risk, because I know myself inside and out. I can trust me, not other people. But this hyper-individualism, beyond short high-impact experiences, yields little rewards.

Alexis de Tocqueville once warned of atomized existence, where our individual desires would destroy social structures and eventually erode our democracy. A 1985 Habits of the Heart study reported Americans speak a “first language” of personal ambitions and a “second language” of commitments to others. My mother tongue is the chase and the climb, but this summer revived my dead second dialect. In the summer where I became a patriot, Tocqueville’s argument was compelling; but watching the same phenomenon play out in my changing definition of a “hot girl summer” was just as resonant.

I thought my search for meaning had to be alone. And I certainly was transformed by my solo travel. But, sometimes, you heal with others.

The relationships I’ve built this summer are beautiful. They’ve shown me what it means to care for others and be cared for. But they are also momentary. Who knows when my paths will cross again with my local barista? How will I stay in touch with a roommate who goes to college across the world? Will I ever live in DC again?

Sometimes, the answers to the questions are less important than the relationships themselves. I trust you, you trust me, we share something together. The Chinese Community Church, an important part of the historic DC Chinatown, crystallized this for me: our love of Christ tied us together. That can be enough.

But most of the time, it’s not. You fight for those relationships. Your people are always your people, even if they aren’t with you. I make an annual pilgrimage to Mobile, Alabama for my people, so different from me in life experience but so important nonetheless. The volunteers at Distinguished Young Women remind me that love doesn’t disappear so easily.

When I judged the DYW of Maryland program (bucket list item!!!), and was driven the 1.5 hour long ride home by an alum who I’d met just 6 hours before, I was struck by how seamlessly we fit together.

There is something special about the ties that bind us. It’s painful to have them severed by distance and time, but I’m not willing to let that scare me away anymore.

In my final capstone presentation for the American Enterprise Institute’s Summer Honors Academy, I told the audience that community isn’t born — it’s built. It’s a project of trust, a labor of love, and a commitment to the people that matter.

I am a mosaic of everyone I’ve ever loved, if even for a heartbeat. Here are a few new additions to my patchwork of a person:

A housemate’s reading habits inspired me to order my first paper-copy books in years. My makeup routine is a dupe of a high school best friend. I grumble at the sight of lawns, because of an inside joke from a summer class. Southern-style sweet tea is my guilty pleasure, thanks to Mobile. I take photos of birds, because my cousin does. A girl who loves hugs reignited physical affection as my love language. I dedicated a playlist to a boy.

I’m on mile 3 of a marathon, and I’m not sure who will be with me at the end. But damn, do I love the people I’m with now. How I’ll try to keep them!

To live is to lose.

Goodbye, my ephemeral Exploration Summer.