Saying Goodbye to Summer

It’s almost September. Kids are going back to school. Clothing stores are advertising their fall line. College move-in day has come and gone. Starbucks is releasing its Pumpkin Spice Latte early. And I am sad.

I love summer. It is by far my favorite time of year. Give me an excuse to wear loose and colorful clothes, spend an exorbitant amount of time outside, and stay out late with the people I love simply because it’s “summer.” I think it also holds a special place in my heart because I have always been such an intense academic, and summer was the one time of year that I would ever give myself a slight break so that when fall came I looked forward to it and getting back into the academic swing.

However, now that I’ve been out of college for two full years and entered the “adult” world where there are never any breaks until you die apparently, summer holds all my nostalgia for childhood, adolescence, and college memories. “Real Life” with a “Real Job” doesn’t allow for any give like summer did when I was in school. Summer is still fun as an adult although my fun activities are restricted to mostly weekends or holidays which is unfortunate since that’s when everyone else celebrates summer too. I can still go to the beach and amusement parks and see all the summer blockbusters and go swimming at the pool, but there’s always that looming shadow of “Life” behind the fun where I feel guilty if I take even the slightest extra moment to relax. That’s how I felt throughout the entire school year in high school and college, and summer was my one break. Now I just don’t get one anymore.

I don’t want you to think I’m complaining. I get it. It’s life. It’s being an adult. But I think as summer comes to an end, it still warrants some lamenting.

You see, I don’t know how to say goodbye to summer. I just spend the other nine months out of the year aching for the heat and the fun under the sun. In those precious three months of summer, I wear myself out trying to do EVERYTHING so I can get as much out of summer as possible. Somehow it still never feels as authentic or magical as it did when I was a teen and an early twenty-something.

(Full-time jobs ruin everything even if they make it possible to pay your bills.)

I fell in love a lot during the summer. Those have always been my favorite romances. I know it sounds cheesy and like a Hollywood romantic-comedy (or worse, a Lifetime B-movie), but romance in the summer is the sweetest kind to me. Long nights and bright days and lots of talking and careless abandon. It’s easier to be carefree in the summer I think. The weather and the media combine to influence us that way, I think. We need to put down our defenses to fall in love, and summer makes it easier for us to do so. Alas, I didn’t fall in love this summer so it seems like I missed out on something. I certainly did plenty of fun things! But I’m definitely having a little bit of the “end-of-summer” blues.

While parents are rejoicing at the return of their trying children to school brought on by the inevitable onset of fall, I’m still trying to pretend summer isn’t over. I have a beach trip in September with my family that I hope will be warm enough for me to extend my flights of fancy brought on by summer a little longer. But after that I won’t have much choice but to accept fall and go into another long nine months of “happiness hibernation.” I’m obviously not asleep for the next nine months, but it sure is harder for me to be happy. I hope that since I’m being relatively conscious of how the seasons affect me that I can work to counteract the end of summer’s effect on me. However, I can’t make summer stay any longer.

So goodbye summer. I shall miss you and every sweet memory I’ve made with you until next June when we begin again.