Reclaiming My Passive Summer, Without a Passport

The 10 to 12 weeks of summer vacation are often depicted as the ideal time for grand adventures and foreign getaways. However, my summers mostly consist of unhealthy “doomscrolling” at 1:00 a.m. and waking up in the afternoon just to continue my endless cycle of mindless browsing. Each summer, my social media feeds are constantly filled with Instagram stories of people visiting foreign countries with their families, and new photo dumps exploring places that I cannot see beyond images on the internet. 

Growing up, the concept of a summer vacation to a foreign country was foreign in itself for my family, constantly making me feel like that part of my childhood was missing a crucial piece. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was the fear of being asked “What did you do over the summer?” by my teachers on the first day of school for icebreakers, and not being able to respond with “I went to Miami,” or “I visited my grandparents in Hong Kong, China,” like the rest of my classmates. Or maybe it was the feeling of being left out when my friends shared their travel stories, and being unable to share my own experiences. Or maybe it was simply the feeling of missing out on the world beyond my own. 

This summer was no different. Another one had begun, and yet again, I was watching it pass rather than truly living it.

Swiping through stories of families posing before iconic landmarks and famous attractions became a summer tradition that helped pass the long, uneventful day. Each afternoon, I would wake up to notifications of endless posts on social media from classmates and travel vloggers boarding planes, exploring new countries, experiencing new cuisines, and visiting renowned tourist sites. As each new photo appeared on my screen, a familiar ache tightened in my chest as I watched dreams that felt miles away from my own life unfold. And the more I watched, the more my own summer seemed to be unbearably dull. 

But, amidst all of the envy was a deeper longing to reconnect with my family’s cultural roots in China. Never having traveled outside of America, visiting China had always seemed to me as an opportunity to bridge the gap between my life and the ancestral roots that have shaped my family’s identity. The desire to immerse myself in everyday traditions, understand my own identity through its history, and connect with the country made every travel post from my classmates even harder to scroll past.

Scrolling through countless travel photos online was simple. The cost of turning those dreams into my reality was far beyond what my family could comfortably afford. With my parents working relentlessly for eight hours Monday through Friday, the luxury of traveling outside the country for vacation was always an idealistic fantasy that I could not envision for myself. Even local trips to restaurants in Chinatown carried inevitable weight for wanting to order a dish that cost more than what could have been made at home, and the lingering guilt of spending money on blindboxes with my friends became a struggle, especially knowing that even a few dollars spent sporadically could quickly add up. It wasn’t that my mom said no to things. It was the guilt I felt when she said yes, knowing how many hours she had worked for the money she was spending on me. Even small things made me feel like I was asking her to give up her own time and energy for my personal pleasure. Every decision, no matter how small, emphasized a clear reality: resources were meant for necessities rather than pleasures, including vacations to foreign countries, the blindboxes marketed on social media, or even trips to local restaurants.

But, for once, I wanted a summer that truly felt like mine—one where there was more to my summer than what was on a screen. My summer days often blurred into one. It became increasingly more difficult to keep track of the date as each felt more uniform, except for Sundays, when my weekly Screen Time Report would appear, reminding me of how many hours I had spent scrolling my summer away. I’d get a notification each time, and each felt more embarrassing than the last: 14 hours, 51 minutes on average screentime daily. 56 hours on TikTok this week. 39 hours on Instagram. 

At first, it didn’t affect me at all. But one afternoon, after hearing my friend describing her two-week trip to South Korea and scrolling through the photos she took, I realized I had spent another day envying others and waiting for my days to become “great.” 

“You’re so lucky your family gets to travel,” I responded to my friend, with a hint of envy lacing my voice.

“I know! My parents and I worked really hard, and I’m really happy we had the opportunity to visit. We’ve been saving up for this trip for months,” my friend replied, swiping through the photos on her phone. At first, my friend’s words hadn’t registered, fading into the rest of our conversation. She would add another story from her trip with each photo she swiped to, and I couldn’t help but feel the same knot of jealousy tighten in my stomach comparing her summer to my own.

It wasn’t until the same afternoon, when I heard the familiar jingle of my mother’s keys at 5:00 p.m. as she came home to cook dinner, that something about the familiar routine felt different. My friend’s words had resurfaced. As I thought of the months my friend’s parents had spent saving for a trip to South Korea, I realized that my mother too was making sacrifices for me in ways I had grown accustomed to. Watching how her shoulders would slump forward while carrying bags of groceries and clothes creased with wrinkles, the contrast became clear: I had spent my days passively scrolling and envying the lives of others, while my mother had spent hers working to provide the life I already had, a life I had mistaken for ordinary, simply because it was mine. I realized that a “great” summer isn’t defined by visiting a country across the globe, but from meaningful moments I could create right here, at home, in the life my parents work so hard for.

For the first time, I stopped measuring my summer against everyone else’s. My friend’s trip to South Korea wasn’t proof that my summer was lacking, nor was my inability to visit China with my family this summer. While my dream of exploring China still lingers, the scent of using ginger and soy to cook family dishes from my home’s kitchen, creating bracelets with intricate knots and jaded materials, and speaking Cantonese during family gatherings offered an equally rich kind of cultural tapestry if I had visited China. This summer, after the realization, unlike any before it that I could vividly describe, was spent joyously following sacred dim sum recipes with my family and watching my mother paint with intricate strokes, discovering a more meaningful connection to my heritage at home, and an ultimately more fulfilling summer.

Almost every weekend in the heart of New York, I found myself discovering something I had never noticed before, reminding me again that experiencing something new didn’t have to mean traveling far. Whether it be taking a walk while admiring the beauty of Central Park, entering the Metropolitan Museum of Art for free, exploring unfamiliar neighborhoods, or buying hot steamed dumplings from the small vendors in Chinatown, the city offered more than enough opportunities for me to explore. Making this summer memorable and remarkable was more accessible than I had realized, right in the city I was constantly eager to leave.

Instead of waking up to consume someone else’s life on social media, I began waking up to my own. From then on, the constant buzzing on my phone no longer had the same effect. Rediscovering my love for reading and writing opened a vibrant new world of creativity, while being able to help my mother with cooking dinner taught me that fulfillment can be found in acts of love for my family. Without the need to travel to new and distant places, or doomscroll for hours to escape a life “unfulfilled,” I could discover myself and my growth through the pursuit of my passions and choosing to show love for the people I care about most, choosing to be present in my life for me.

Summer is definitely a time for grand adventures. But “grand adventures” don’t just mean having a passport or a plane ticket to countries thousands of miles away. They can also mean self-discovery, whether through embracing new experiences, finding new meaning in everyday life, or taking the initiative to seize each day.