An Open Letter to People Who Say, "Summer's Not Over Yet!"

Dear People Who Say Summer Isn’t Over Yet,

Shut up. Just shut the fuck up.

I understand your relentless Instagram-captioning is rooted in deep melancholy mixed with a childish inability to surrender to how seasons work. But what I need you to understand is that summer is over. Not only is the calendar saying it, but I’m fucking saying it. It’s over. I can’t have summer just going on endlessly. School is already well underway. I have work to do.

Plus, I need my spiral of self-hate to wrap up for the season. Look, I’m all for body positivity… for everyone else. Just know that if I ever stumble into a decent amount of money, the very first item on my agenda will be hiring a plastic surgeon to resculpt this mashed potato-looking middle aged body I’ve had since I was 8. Every Sunday for years I’ve stared at myself shirtless in the mirror thinking that this will finally be the week I get this shit under control.

For so many summers, I’ve longed to be able to run and catch a football without my thigh fat and love handles ricocheting back and forth like a wave pool filled with hot bacon grease. And, hell, sometimes I do actually make stunning progress. But then Summer gets here, a surprisingly stressful-ass house built on ice cream and beer. And as soon as I find myself on a rooftop talking to a gal in a sundress, POOF: an ungodly amount of rich, decadent meals, bottles of wine, and carbs, carbs, carbs enter my life. Any willpower I maintained throughout the year is impaled on a hastily whittled branch and roasted over a campfire.

And I’ll be damned if I’m going to self-medicate with anything that doesn’t contain fat or alcohol or, ideally, both.

So while I understand that your enthusiasm for this late summer weather is likely based on the fact that you are young and ambitious, with reasonable abs and a belief you’ll never mottle, I am begging you to cut the shit.

I am crawling towards my pile of jeans, flannel shirts, waffle henleys, and heavy-ass boots like a Democratic presidential candidate crawls toward an opening in the conversation. I am ready to completely encase my body in fabrics that do not wick. I need this right now. Please don’t ruin this for me.

Everything good must come to an end as well as things that make you sweaty. Appreciate you understanding.

Yours Truly,

Christian