I try very hard to avoid becoming emotional when it comes to heart-pulling, tear-inducing provocation from movies, songs, Hallmark commercials, etc…The moment I feel the tickle in my nose or the pressure in my throat, I fight it at all costs! Why do I do this? I don’t know. Maybe I just prefer to avoid it. Doesn’t matter. The point is, is that this feeling came over me last Saturday when the credits began rolling at the end of the new movie The Secret World of Arrietty that I enjoyed ever so much, wow!

The whole film was a delight!  A sweet and innocent story filled with gorgeous colors on hand drawn animation, beautiful music and even a simple, but meaningful message of simplicity and friendship to take away with me. I never had even a single stirring of tearful emotion – even in the last scene. But then this song began, as I mentioned, during the credits…have a listen, would you? I suspect you won’t regret it.

Cherry popsicles sand in my toes
Rolled down windows, hold my hand, hold me close
Pick up your phone, wanna hear your voice again
Like a fresh air like a windblown hair
I like you I don’t care
Why did it have to end?
Summer love with my best friend

Summertime, Bridgit Mendler

It was those words right up there, of the chorus, that tightened my throat and released the water works…and yet, I was still able to contain it some what and I believe that only Chris could tell that I was fighting hard, even as we left the theater. I was fine. Fine. Until I heard “Popsicles…sand in my toes…rolled down windows…windblown hair…summer love…best friend”…UGH!

I’m not a heartless girl, I assure you! It’s just these words that stir up memories of summertime for me as a kid. When my days were long and filled with fun and friends and careless galavanting through the neighborhood on bikes, roller skates, skateboards…listening for the ice cream truck… watching the juice from my Popsicle dripping down my hands onto the sidewalk below leaving a stain of red, green or purple. Hide-n-seek. Sidewalk Chalk. Blowing bubbles. Playing at the beach. Flying kites.

I can pretty much shove back emotion easy enough, until someone starts singing something that places Summertime childhood memories in my mind’s forefront and then I’m done for. Even just yesterday, Chris found the song and started playing it for me without my knowledge of what it was. I recognized the beginning right away and asked him where had I heard it? (You know…when you only hear a song once, and then some days go by, it’s easy to miss place it in your mind…for me anyway). He didn’t say anything before the lyrics began and I mean to tell you…the throat pressure started, along with the tickle in my nose, and the welling up of tears in my eyes… I told him this song slays me. Slays me! And, yet, I can’t stop listening to it!

I’ll tell you what else it reminds me of from my years as a kid. I remember being still so little and riding in the child seat on the back of my dad’s bike on our way into town. What fun! I was never afraid of falling … or of him falling … you know, to a little girl, her dad is a pillar of strength – he doesn’t fall. He does’t even skin his knee! A dad is often a little girl’s best pal! But there was this one time that my sandal was about to fall off my foot while we were riding. This is what rocked me. I remember watching the progression of it go from a secure fit to the sliding off a little…and then a little more…then no matter how hard I tried to arch my little foot to keep it on, it ended up barely hanging from my toe. I don’t know how this happened but I was certain I would never see this sandal again if it made the plunge onto the gravelly road below-that was flying by under me so fast! I screamed, you know I did? I screamed and screamed, scaring the you-know-what out of my dad. He was disgruntled and concerned all in the same moment as he came to a screeching halt on the bike… slowing it down with his feet until we stopped all the way. My dad bravely saved the fate of my sandal…and what stays with me the most is the memory of my horror, his horror in initially reacting to my screaming, and then his (a little bit) impatience with his little girl’s dramatic attempt at saving her sandal. Doesn’t matter…it was a summertime memory and if that right there was the extent of my troubles, then I’ll take it!

I also remember summertimes when I was a little bit older. Maybe even as old as in junior high and high school, when I was old enough to know I could do cool things, but not old enough to really go out and go for it.

I remember the summer that I met Chris. I was 18 then, the summer after graduation. I don’t know what we did, really, but the part in the song about rolled down windows, wind blown hair and summer love with my best friend is what grips my heart. Best friend can mean a lot of different people (parents, sibling, teacher, etc…) as we go through the stages of our lives…but Chris was my love and my best friend and we really did do a lot of driving around with the windows down, music blaring and making trouble…I’m kidding. We didn’t make any more trouble than the guy next to us. We were good kids.

The bottom line is this. I am blessed enough to have had a childhood and upbringing that lent itself to immeasurable summer time fun and the memories that came as a result. My eyes well up at these thoughts because they were always a carefree time for me it seemed.

I’m an adult now, and while sometimes I can still be carefree in the summer time (my kids help in that capacity), I still have the responsibilities that tip toe alongside that word, adult.

There is, however, that young girl inside me that craves the days of summer times-past. The weather changes, the shoes come off, and she’s in there alright, waving her little hands, jumping up and down, trying to be loud enough to get out. She’s probably the one that makes me cry when songs like this hit my ears! So, please don’t sing me a summertime song…unless you want to be around a Jen that turns all goofy and sentimental, and too emotional for her own good!