Vineyard Summer

While I don't want to wish the rest of my senior year away, a phone conversation with one of my best friends made me thirst for what is to come this summer. My summers on Martha's Vineyard have contained some of the most defining moments of my life. It is how I truly came to know myself, truly figured out how to live on my own, became able to live with anyone anywhere, and truly realized what it was like to be an adult. The friends I both took with me to the Vineyard and made on the Vineyard are people that I will never forget, and hopefully always have in my life. Today I got to talk to one of those people and catch up on how her life is, and it made me painfully nostalgic for this:
^Rhiannon, Me and our other friend (and one of my best from high school), Catherine

I met Rhiannon my first summer on the Vineyard. We had a lot in common right off the bat. We waited tables together, we had never spent the summer away from home before, we were living in undesirable circumstances (she with a family she was nannying for, me with an insane landlady in my back yard), we both enjoyed Jack Daniels and bathroom humor, and we were both underage. We had so many adventures together, days on the beach with red wine, not wearing sunscreen, nights in the restaurant complaining about bad patrons and teasing our coworkers.

One day we drove up island to the public beach by the red cliffs and the lighthouse. Somehow we caught the attention of some guys on a boat and they invited us to go tubing. What luck! When Rhiannon left (a week before I did) it wasn't the same. Summer had ended. We had both grown so much as people, undoubtedly with the help of each other, and it was hard to say goodbye. But, we lived together again for our second summer, 2009. Rhiannon brought her boyfriend, and we had my brother, my cousin, and another friend of theirs from school. And once again, we rocked it. All summer long.

We talked today for the first time in six months, and it felt like we had never missed a beat. That's what a true friendship is all about. She won't be back on the island this summer, but she'll make visits. And I cannot wait to go back--the ocean, the sun, the salty nights, the boys, the margaritas...paradise.

What are your summer adventures?