Caps Off!

The graduation caps have been thrown, and high school graduates all over the country watch as real life crashes down with them. But the moment before they hit the ground, the time to reflect and project what’s to come, that is this summer. It is not just a summer, defined by the sun in the sky and the taste of the air. It is our last summer with ourselves as we are now. Who knows who we could be by next year’s grumbling lawn mowers, tempting pool sides, giggling children and clingy sunshine?

What did I honestly have planned? A huge book list, a haircut, a couple movies. Yes, as teenagers (rich teenagers at that) planned for summers abroad, extravagant excursions with friends, clubbing at places in my city I’ve never even heard of, I was happy to settle cozily into distant dreams. What I didn’t realize was that this summer has too different an ending to have the same sort of beginning as my summers before. When I got a call that a condo in the luxurious Vail, Colorado had opened up by way of a family friend, I could do nothing but stumble out the first surprised “Yes?” in my new life of taking opportunities.

So I threw some friends in the car, and we left the unnecessary clutter of graduation parties and irritating high school memories gathering in our periphery. With nothing in our way, rid of everything that used to define us. I’ll admit, at first we didn’t say much. And I hardly drove into the sunset. Something you should all know about my car—it is as stereotypical beater as you get. Semis passed me on the highway, my car huffing and puffing like a kid with asthma and an old man with a wheeze. It didn’t escape my notice that my inability to get up a hill seemed highly symbolic. Everything seems symbolic right after graduating. At the least it made philosophical conversations tough.

But we made it, albeit very slowly. And we ran through each room in the condo screaming and taking pictures, just as any giggly graduate girls should. Then we walked into Vail Village, a place very much of dreams. Not many people were there—we did frequent it in what my dad calls “mud season” when skiing is not longer available and most vacationers have not yet awakened to the summer possibilities. But kicking up my own dust and walking through those lovely streets was enough for me. Vail could pass for a European village—that or a land right out of a snow globe, just waiting for the shake of glitter. A man played a saxophone from his window. White Christmas bulbs spiraled out from the center of an outdoor ballroom. Fountains still flowed and windows still offered exquisite trinkets. This palace of a place was all our own.
We sat by the pool in the day, floated under the star-speckled sky at night. We then retreated to cupcakes and cinema in our condo, our conversations never ending. We ventured into the equally charming town of Edwards for brunch and books—a combination I surprisingly had never tried before. And we played tennis. Myself being the only one of all of us with tennis experience, I of course was the one to sprain my arm. Symbolism aside, we were happy.

When it was time to go, it finally hit me. Had I just done something worthy of the books I would’ve read, the dreams I would’ve aspired to? Had I joined the throngs of teenagers saying yes to the life that was just beginning? And now I wonder, if this was the sweet sweet beginning, how will I like the end? The graduation cap is a little lower, reality a little closer to hitting me with a thud. But I think saying “yes?” or maybe someday soon “YES!” is the best way to prepare for when it arrives.