Summertime

It’s late August, a month from fall
and someone on TikTok was talking again
about having “a hot girl summer”, a phrase
that I am so tired of hearing for so many reasons.
First, that women are reduced (once again)
to only being worth the sum of their parts
and hotness, as we all know, means skinny and young
or looking like we are young, if we are older like me.

At my house, we’re having an ADHD summer.
An eating disorder summer, an OCD summer
with my middle son counting the syllables of each word.
We’re having a three meals and three snacks summer
a counting calories summer, though not to be thin
but instead to stay alive. We’re having a sad girl summer.

We’re having a puppy summer, not just the fur and the fun
but the shit and the pee and mysterious vomit,
stuffing from his toys everywhere and faceless dinosaur corpses.
We’re having a painful summer, a training summer
a summer of keeping him from leaping on the table.
He crawls behind the garbage bins when he’s stolen something.
He’s having a really great summer, if you ask him.

We’re having a therapy summer, a Telehealth summer
a summer of sitting in front of screens, brooding
and filling out the Vanderbilt. We’re having an expensive summer
but not because we went to Italy, or splurged at the beach.
We’re having a “thankful for insurance” summer
A “Dad needs to work” summer, a “Mom needs a break” summer
a summer of laying down our hopes and picking up the pieces.
We’re having a broken summer.

We’re having a summer of starting over
of figuring out, once again, what it means to parent
and our kids figuring out what it means to be them.
Not hot girls or boys, though they are beautiful 
but what it means to have a different brain
a different body, a self worth fighting for no matter what
and a summer that is just a summer, just us.