When summer ends, I feel 9 years old.
I feel like I've just said goodbye to my best friends at camp for 10 months. I feel empty. And full.
And though my camping days are long behind me and I've been out of school for more than a decade, the end of summer still stings with nostalgia.
September meant days at desks, homework and a different set of friends. For some reason, I was more popular in the summer. I rallied the troops, kept the peace and made a fool of myself without fear of embarrassment. At home, I wandered in the neurotic void between the cool kids, the kids who studied too much, and the kids who didn't feel the need to study or act cool.
But not in summer.
In the summer, we played softball, flag football, floor hockey, basketball, tennis and capture the flag. We swam, water-skied, filled water balloons and learned just how far you could bend the rules. Our greatest concern was how to suck every last drip of fun from our privileged, obscenely expensive eight-week vacation from home.
September meant 180 days of least common denominators and "Great Expectations" and Hawley-Smoot Tariff Acts. It meant sweat shirts and Sunday school and piano lessons and swim practice and badly played soccer on Saturdays.
September also meant football season: the thrill of barbecue in the crisp air, mingling with mud, sweat, leather and blood. Though for a Jets fan, while the atmosphere might be ripe, the team only occasionally offered actual joy.
But in summer, there was hope.
In the summer, I could bounce on my bed and off the walls for hours after Danielle Upbin kissed me goodnight. I have since had far more rewarding relationships — some that even lasted more than a week or two. But it's difficult to match the giddiness of a peck on the lips when you're 13 years old. The promise of fleeting meetings, casual touches, scrawled notes delivered with giggles.
September in college wasn't so bad. The freedom made it feel a lot like sleepaway camp — only with lectures and midterms and alcohol.
I suppose we had as much fun in college as should be permitted while ostensibly educating ourselves at our privileged, obscenely expensive four-year vacation from the real world. But deadlines loomed around every ivy-covered corner. It took five years after graduation before I stopped dreaming about some assignment I had forgotten or a test for which I had neglected to study.
Now, summer is just another season. The weather changes. Football kicks off. The job — rewarding as it can be — stays the same.
So as students return to school this week, I pity them some. But mostly I envy them.
I feel like I've just said goodbye to my best friends at camp for 10 months. I feel empty. And full.
And though my camping days are long behind me and I've been out of school for more than a decade, the end of summer still stings with nostalgia.
September meant days at desks, homework and a different set of friends. For some reason, I was more popular in the summer. I rallied the troops, kept the peace and made a fool of myself without fear of embarrassment. At home, I wandered in the neurotic void between the cool kids, the kids who studied too much, and the kids who didn't feel the need to study or act cool.
But not in summer.
In the summer, we played softball, flag football, floor hockey, basketball, tennis and capture the flag. We swam, water-skied, filled water balloons and learned just how far you could bend the rules. Our greatest concern was how to suck every last drip of fun from our privileged, obscenely expensive eight-week vacation from home.
September meant 180 days of least common denominators and "Great Expectations" and Hawley-Smoot Tariff Acts. It meant sweat shirts and Sunday school and piano lessons and swim practice and badly played soccer on Saturdays.
September also meant football season: the thrill of barbecue in the crisp air, mingling with mud, sweat, leather and blood. Though for a Jets fan, while the atmosphere might be ripe, the team only occasionally offered actual joy.
But in summer, there was hope.
In the summer, I could bounce on my bed and off the walls for hours after Danielle Upbin kissed me goodnight. I have since had far more rewarding relationships — some that even lasted more than a week or two. But it's difficult to match the giddiness of a peck on the lips when you're 13 years old. The promise of fleeting meetings, casual touches, scrawled notes delivered with giggles.
September in college wasn't so bad. The freedom made it feel a lot like sleepaway camp — only with lectures and midterms and alcohol.
I suppose we had as much fun in college as should be permitted while ostensibly educating ourselves at our privileged, obscenely expensive four-year vacation from the real world. But deadlines loomed around every ivy-covered corner. It took five years after graduation before I stopped dreaming about some assignment I had forgotten or a test for which I had neglected to study.
Now, summer is just another season. The weather changes. Football kicks off. The job — rewarding as it can be — stays the same.
So as students return to school this week, I pity them some. But mostly I envy them.
Though they are trapped in stuffy rooms with stuffy students and occasionally droning instructors cramming information into them lest they be a child left behind. Though their parents likely schedule every last minute of their lives and dress them with itchy, unfashionable fabrics. Though summer is as far away today as it will ever be . . .
At some point, fall and winter and spring will end. And it will be summer again.
1 comment:
I still have those dreams about missed papers, exams, classes, etc.
When I wake up, I have to convince myself (again) that I have that damn diploma hanging the wall before the anxiety finally goes away.
Post a Comment