Freckles, Freedom, and FOMO: Why Summer Always Feels Like a Turning Point

Image courtesy of Peter Luke (Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

All year, we wait for that perfect time again: summer. 

The season of tan lines, iced lattes, and late-night memories with our friends. It is that rare, shimmering window in our youth when deadlines disappear, responsibilities loosen, and freedom feels not just possible, but infinite. We indulge in the fantasy of summer in group chats, Pinterest boards and daydreams - only for it to tease us, slipping through our fingers before half the plans have made it out of the group chat. 

The promise of summer is comforting, but does it ever truly live up to our expectations? As the character Belly from The Summer I Turned Pretty put it: “For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers. Like, I don’t really begin living until June.” 

We’ve all done it. Whether it’s crafting a 100-item bucket list, saving TikTok’s under “Summer plans,” or making a new summer playlist five months too early with a few too many Calvin Harris songs (I plead guilty) – the romanticisation of summer is a common, but nonetheless deadly disease. We have become infected by the idea of the perfect summer, because this one will be unforgettable… right? And the symptoms? Restlessness. Overplanning. Crushing FOMO. 

It feels like the fresh start we’ve been waiting for. Finally, a long break from lectures, 500-page long readings, and 8 a.m. alarms. We are rewarded with glorious summer rays of relaxation and freedom which sizzle away all our stress and anxiety. We can even get ahead for next year – getting started on readings and getting your life together with more work experience. 

However, we get so spoiled and overwhelmed by all this free time to get ahead of the curve that it becomes a sphere. We sleep in. We binge on snacks and Netflix while the sun beams outside. We tell ourselves, “There’s still time. I have the whole summer.” And then, suddenly, there isn’t. The cracks in the summer fantasy begin to show when the days blur, your vision board remains unfulfilled, and only one chapter of a book has been read. The adventures, hopes and plans turn into fairytales as we end up in a cycle of laziness and procrastination. By the time you realise that three months have flashed by, it’s too late and you’re left asking the inevitable question: “Alexa, play Where’d All the Time Go?”

And then comes the inevitable countdown: How many days of summer do I actually have left? How many more summers do I have in my twenties? How many more summers of absolute freedom do I have before I am dragged from sweet adolescence into dooming adulthood with no long summers, just endless employment with the “free” years behind you? Dramatic, I know but we have all thought it.

Sometimes it feels like everyone is doing summer better than you, with aesthetics plastered all over social media. When you open Instagram after May, you can’t escape the sun-kissed smiles from Ibiza, carousels of disposable camera memories, and the freckles blooming on people’s noses like flowers. It creates this pressure for summer to be some cinematic, memorable adventure. You start to wonder: will this be the summer I manage to fit self-discovery, romance, personal growth and tan lines all into one fleeting season?

But no one posts the other side of summer that people rarely talk about – the days that feel flat. The ones where your friends are busy, the weather turns and people cancel last-minute. When you’re 2 hours deep into doom-scrolling in your bed and the sunset glows outside your window, whispering that you’re missing out on something. That peculiar summer sadness creeps in, making you feel guilty for not being out there living more vividly, like there’s a clock ticking above your head. 

Image courtesy of Megusta1D (Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Maybe that is why summer feels like a turning point. We come into it craving a miracle transformation – ready to become our ‘better’ selves, start fresh and make lasting memories. It becomes an annual checkpoint. We fall in love with the idea of summer, which seduces us away from reality. 

By the time you are reading this, summer will already have passed. The shadow of academic pressure that was chasing you down all summer will have already caught up with you. That strange, gutting nostalgia for a season that just ended will creep in before the autumn leaves have even begun to fall. It will interrogate you with questions like, “Is that it?” and “Did you really make the most of every second?” 

But the end of the sun doesn’t mean the end of fun.

Autumn holds its own kind of beauty: spontaneous nights out with your uni friends, cosy café study sessions that turn into conversations you remember for months, and moments that might mean even more to you than summer’s golden glow. You’re stepping into a new season, a new place, and the opportunity for a new you.

Although the freckles fade, the sun sets earlier, and the tans get lighter, summer will come again. And when you switch back to your autumn playlist and lay the summer 2025 one to rest, remember this: there is more to look forward to. Take off the sun-tinted glasses and stop waiting for next June to feel alive again. Start now.

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Edited by Roxy-Moon Dahal Hodson and Hania Ahmed