“Oh and June 18th, how does that sound? Because I think that week Emma, Abbie, Lauren and Ellen are coming up with me! Then July 12th I’m inviting Eric up for the weekend! Then Will and Emma can meet us up here. Oh wait how could I forget the fourth of…”

“Emily, can you please put you’re dad on the phone?”

Puzzled on why my grandma would interrupt me during my fun summer plans up at the lake I gave me dad a weird face while giving him the phone. She did not sound happy; I wonder why. She loves when I have people up at the lake.

“What do you mean you… no you can’t... but mom…” my dad whined

It was then when I first saw my dad cry.

The water is as clear and fresh as water could get. The blue of the water is indescribable. If makes the color of the Caribbean Sea go to shame. It’s the prettiest, bluest and purest of all blues. The air is always fresh. The plants are always healthy. The food is always legendary. There aren’t even bugs. Heck, this place has a twitter account that’s how great it is. I went there every summer since I was two months old. Torch Lake was my pure bliss. I never even thought about a summer without my lake house and now I was about to experience it. I’m not going to lie that I cried when I heard the news. That beautiful house up at Torch Lake was sold. I was furious. How could my grandparents sell it? Why would they sell it? My family loved it up there and now, because of them, we couldn’t enjoy it. My friends made me mad too. They complained about their boyfriend problems being more important than my lake house being sold. How could they even compare a boy they like to my childhood? Because that’s what torch lake was to me, my childhood. No activities, story, event or homework could shake my mind off of Torch Lake being gone.

After a week in a half of slowly falling into depression I finally came up with a brilliant idea! TV would help my mind drift off of the lake house and onto stupid things like, “What Not to Wear”, or who the new suspect was on “Pretty Little Liars”. After a few clicks of the button I realized that all my recordings were deleted. It was so long since I’ve watched Tv, but would anyone from my family actually delete them? I whipped the remote on the ground and screamed for my brother so I could find out what the cause of this was. He sprinted up the stairs like a cheetah chasing its pray. He heard the anger in my voice and knew what he did.

“Emily but the soccer game was on! I had to record it so I cancelled one of your shows but I pressed the wrong button and deleted all of it… I’m sorry I’ll do whatever you want I didn’t mean to do it” he cried.

“Get me some ice cream then” I snapped
I picked the clicker up and explored all my options: wheel of fortune, animal planet, teen mom, and tons more. I finally settled on dance moms. I watched girls and moms complain about their hair being too curly, not getting the solo or duet, not being perfect enough and this and that. It was pure torture. Before I could pick up the remote I realized that they were reflecting my life. Everything I was complaining about didn’t matter to anyone else. Maybe my childhood lake house relates to someone’s childhood of hard work to earn that solo. I was complaining about people being selfish when I was the selfish one.

Even though it might be my favorite place on earth doesn’t mean its everybody’s favorite. Most likely, no one will care while you are complaining because they are dealing with something that they want to complain about. It might be the prettiest, bluest and purest water in the world, but it’s just a place. It’s hard to accept but everything does happen for a reason. The reason can’t come without accepting what happened though. Live life to the fullest even if it doesn’t go the way you wanted it to because life is full of surprises.