By: Sarah Hudes

Summer of 2017 brought memories, laughter, and good times, but it also brought  lots of tears.  Yes, tears; as in the product of crying, weeping, sobbing, bawling, laughing, yawning too hard, etc.  These are the reasons why I’ve cried this summer.  Please feel free to laugh at, cry with, and/or feel sorry for me.  Hopefully some of you can relate to these experiences.

1. I cried because I realized I didn’t know how to properly hug.  Actually, it was more of the realization that all the hugs I have given in the past have been inadequate that made me cry.*
2. I cried after I read a summer reading essay for AP Lang.  It was Joan Didion’s “Goodbye to All That.” It made me miss a city I’ve never lived in; or maybe it made me anticipate a love-hate relationship I will have with a city in my future.
3. It was 4:00 AM and I thought about nihilism for a while and then cried.  The skeptic in me is usually most present at this hour.
4. I cried after  watching the movie When Harry Met Sally.  It was also around 3:00 AM.
5. I remember crying in an elevator after leaving the friends I had stayed with in New York for two weeks. The 30 second elevator ride felt like an eternity. I was not very good at hiding my “ugly tears” to my friends in there with me, as we descended down 20 stories to where we would then part ways.
6. On the Fourth of July, at around 12:30 AM,  I got stuck in an elevator with 40 other people.  The maximum capacity was 12.  I remember entering first and people just piling into the elevator behind me.  We were trapped for almost an hour before the fire department saved us. I may have shed a claustrophobic tear or two.
7. I cried after I learned of the Charlottesville riots.  I had never been so terrified to be a Jew in America.  I had seen and experienced anti-Semitism on small scales, but never like this. Never so organized and forceful and evocative of a terrifying past.
8. On a lighter note, my small, white, evil dog ate my retainer and I cried at the thought of having to tell my parents.  He ate my friend’s retainer the subsequent week.
9. I cried after I read a spoiler for The Sopranos by accident.  Now I am four seasons in, and it is torture, knowing that this terrible thing is going to happen, and having to mentally prepare myself for the possibility of it happening every time I see a certain character (I won’t say who, I wouldn’t want to make one of you cry.)

*I’m actually crying right now thinking about all the times I have given people I love bad hugs. There are actual  tears coming out of my eyes.  If you have ever fell victim to one of my hugs please come talk to me.  I want to make things right.