the real life list
I'm a summer girl and that's entirely made up.
It was just about a year ago when I was sitting on my windowsill in my old apartment, neck deep in a bottle of orange wine and a tray of olives and cheese I bought at a deli during my lunch break at work. It was a late summer evening and surprisingly warm, considering Amsterdam weather usually is all but that. The night felt like the end of a year I often refer to as “the year of endless summer”; I spent my winter in the southern hemisphere and only moved back to Amsterdam mid-July when the sun was more of a free-for-all than usual.
These nights have become somewhat of a tradition in my life. Looking back, I can recount almost all of my last-summer-night-of-the-year nights: it was Club-Mate with a friend on a boat perched on top of rail tracks in Munich, a semi-cold Coors Light after sweat-drenched repairs on my broken-down minivan in the middle of the woods in California, salsa dancing and drinking red wine by the litre on a promenade in Italy at sunset, and smearing aloe vera gel on my sunburns drinking steamy cups of lavender tea like I did last night.
These nights always feel like the end of something: of hotness and sun and wearing tiny shorts with cowboy boots, reading books and jumping in the Med, drives through small winding streets with the top down and smoking cigarettes on roofs after nights that felt like they never had to end. I’ve learnt that’s not how everyone feels, that people get excited about cold, rainy weather and it still shocks me every time. If you dare to tell me this while I’m tipsy at a bar, I will for sure scream a tentative “WHAT, NO WAY” at you every time.
It’s been drilled into me that September is when real life starts again. I grew up with a teacher in my household, so there’s never been a year, where I didn’t hear the phrase “back to real life” when the nights turned colder. It’s the reason why I'm a summer girl; and it’s entirely made up. This feeling that happiness goes when the winter comes, that real life only starts after all the fun. That a happy version of me can only exist outside of that “real life”. A natural ending that was nurtured into me.
But that night, sitting on my windowsill watching bikes go by and stars barely making their way through the city fog; I wrote a list, like I usually do: of all the things I wanted to achieve in my “real life” until the next summer. There’s no way I still have that list, I made it a religion to immediately lose lists that I meant to keep for a specific time, but I’m sure it went something like this:
turn my internship into a real job
a few weeks after writing this list, I would walk into my office and quit on the spot, after receiving an email that I considered “disregarding my value to the company”; it was one of the most liberating days of my life - I spent the rest of the morning smoking cigs, drinking beers and watching tourists get lost in the city
create a sense of home with my new roommate
right after quitting my job, I suddenly got a phone call from my landlord telling me he’s going to sell my beloved apartment; the roommate who just moved in with me a few weeks before found a new place and … ghosted me
find friends in the city
I just recently moved back into the city and finding Dutch friends has always been a struggle for me; my best friend is half Dutch so I consider this one a SUCCESS
Writing lists that I immediately lose after has never had the effect on me you’d hope. I, naturally, refuse to follow anything that’s on a list. It’s the reason I’ve lived about ten different lives since I was sixteen years old, and it’s a trait I often refer to as adventurous, when it’s just a complete lack of self-control in reality. I don’t believe in making plans and I don’t believe in following a chosen path. I believe in getting up in the middle of the night, packing up all your things and hopping on a train, when your heart tells you to. But there’s still a few traditions I hold onto: popping the cork on special occasions, drinking lemon water first thing in the morning and writing a “back to real life” list on those last summer days.
It’s now early September and I’m sitting on my balcony (I’ve leveled up from my windowsill as you can see), writing bullet points I’ll forget about tomorrow on a notepad I randomly found in the canned veg aisle today. I’m sipping a Cosmo to hold onto at least one of those last few summer traditions. 1 cl Cointreau, 5cl Vodka (I go Titos forever and always), half a lime even though the recipe calls for a quarter but I like my Cosmos like I like my drinking buddies - sour, 4cl Cranberry Juice (I’m an Ocean Spray kinda gal at heart). Shake on ice and strain into a glass of your choice. Carrie, iconically, does Martini but I am more of a coupe person myself. Both will look great while scribbling down all the things I’m definitely going to do now that we’re back in the real world.
COSMOPOLITAN
1cl Cointreau
5cl Vodka
4cl Cranberry Juice
Half a lime
Shake on ice and strain into a glass of your choice.