Death of Summer

One of the worst things about being an adult is the death of summer. From age 4 through completion of university (shall we say 22), every year, something ends in May or June, and then starts up again in September. Between those months is summer. And regardless of what you were doing, you’d suddenly be doing something different. While a kid, you’d essentially do nothing during the summer — perhaps you were shipped off to relatives, or to camp, or whathaveyou, but it was distinctly different.

Suddenly, upon completing university, you’re thrust into the workforce (unless you’re an academic), and the whole idea of a ‘summer’ disapears. There’s no gradual easing, no stepping down of off-time, just blammo — terminated summer. And it’s incredibly depressing, in some ways. You’ve been working really, really hard since last September, and somewhere, perhaps even on a molecular level, you’re expecting things to change in the summertime. Suddenly, you’ll have time for walks on the beach, playing frisbee in the park, cycling, tanning, etc — everything is better in the summer. But it’s not true. January or July, you’ll be in your office for most of the sunlit hours — you might be staring outside, it’s true — but you’re still at work, doing exactly the same thing you were doing in the winter. It’s awful.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. In fact, it was my summer job for several years while at uni. But now it’s my full-time job. And you’d think, now several years removed from school, I’d have gotten used to this, but you know what? I haven’t. I’m not sure I ever will. And so, every May, I get a little upset, antsy, perhaps even a little depressed that I’m not ending something and about to start something new. I’m fortunate this year in that I coincidentally finished a huge project in April, and am starting a whole slew of new projects, some of whose duration will likely be the length of the summer, but it’s not quite the same as say, a sudden change of vocation, or workplace, or colleagues, or working-hours, or all the other changes that my body is still painfully remembering.

So I’m going for a little trip in June — just a week, but hopefully it’ll mark a breakpoint and will serve as the change I crave.

2 Replies to “Death of Summer”

  1. i agree with you wholeheartedly. the worst thing about life is the lack of summer vacation. i’m not even talking about a university vacation – i usually had to work during those – but real, true summer vacation.

    i want to do nothing for four months, again. hell, i’d even take two months. i would seriously consider joining the academic ranks just for that opportunity…

  2. i agree with you wholeheartedly. the worst thing about life is the lack of summer vacation. i’m not even talking about a university vacation – i usually had to work during those – but real, true summer vacation.

    i want to do nothing for four months, again. hell, i’d even take two months. i would seriously consider joining the academic ranks just for that opportunity…

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: