(500) Days of Summer

I’m on my 488th day of summer today, the longest that I have ever been in my lifetime. Rainy days seems to be around the corner yet in my own personal timeline, I still have 12 more days left to get over and finish my 500 days of summer. Summer spells vacation in the Philippines and this being the longest has also been the most agonizing summer that needs to be endure not because I need to but because I chose to tinker with fate.


This summer is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie 'The Graduate'. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parents' marriage she'd only loved two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.


There are relationships that don’t have a tag on it. It’s not boyfriends, girlfriends, couples, engaged, married or it’s complicated. There’s just no way and no words (at least for now) to complement the stories, the bond and the instant connection that altered the way summer has been spent - forever. Endless talks that transcend distance and time can be misconstrued as something meaningfully deep and true by believers of destiny, fate and soul mates, but at the end of it all there has never been any consistency and difference to the meanest ways of the world.(and the girl)


In one of the conversation at the karaoke bar, Tom Hansen’s friend asked Summer Finn if she has a boyfriend to which Summer replied “No, cause I don’t want one.” to continue, she added “You don’t believe that a woman could enjoy being free and independent? I just don’t feel comfortable being anyone’s girlfriend.” Tom Summer asked “What happens if you fall in love?” Summer replied “You don’t believe that do you? I’ve been in a relationship and I don’t think that I’ve seen it..”


We don’t own the universe much less we don’t have all the time in the world. But spending the 488th day of summer as if it’s the last helps us realize better that sometimes everything is just coincidence and that summers like this makes us better persons, way better than we thought we already are. It makes us realize that after all the pain of human survival that has made our hearts cold as stones, we are still humans tested by coincidence and each reaction or inaction to these elements will define who we are in the near future. Life is an arena of continuous struggles, these coincidence eases out the loads in our shoulders just like persons who just came suddenly along for reasons, seasons and lifetimes. We just need to learn to separate our expectations from reality.


On the 488th day of summer Tom meet Summer after days of waiting in his favorite spot in the city. The meeting was far different from their early day meetings because Summer, the girl who doesn’t even believe in love has been married. So Tom told her “You never wanted to be anybody’s girlfriend and now you’re somebody’s wife.” Summer answered “It surprised me too, it just happened, I just woke up one day and I knew..” Tom asked “Knew what?” Summer replied “What I was never sure of with you..”


This is not a love story. This is a story about love.