And Summer Begins
I loved summer as a kid, the last day of school lingered on the calendar for months. The final day was celebrated with friends and we began the months of long days, endless watermelon and just a lot of nothing. Some summers we worked just enough to have money to spend, other summers were filled with sleepover camps and adventures with our friends. Friday was the last day of school for the minis, and summer has officially begun.
We are in the middle of the first week of their eleven week break. We have made it through the first two days of no school, no alarms and no lunch making. And I don’t even think my kids are appreciating this escape from the structure and the enjoyment of just playing for hours. There has been fighting, and complaining and yelling and throwing and more fighting and more yelling. This is not my kind of summer. And I am ready to find my way back to something that looks a little more carefree.
This isn’t just for the minis, this is for me. I want to go back to those times when stress was simplified by a friend not calling you back, or finding out that your friend is having a party on a night that you have to babysit. I want my kids to enjoy these moments and enjoy the pure and simple fact that it will not last. In a few years, they will have girlfriends and jobs and responsibilities. Their summers will soon become an extension of the rest of the year. I want to give them the gift of summer. I would love to go back to those carefree days. Wait, I mean I want to go back to the idea of that time, but there is no way in hell I would actually return to that time of my live. I have worked very hard on the person I am and there isn’t anything that would entice me to go backwards in time. And even if I had the opportunity, I think I would be horribly disappointed by the magnitude of my awkwardness.
This past week I had a few intimate conversations with people who were dealing with some big things. And honestly we all are dealing with big things. Life just gets harder and more complicated. I wish I could take some of those stresses away, I wish a trip to the mall or a slumber party with a Costco bucket of RedVines would be enough to erase the parts of life that get so big and heavy. I wish we could all just erase one or two of our big stresses and just make them permanently go away. I feel like summer did that for me when I was growing up. All the stresses of friends and school and sports, the summer gave me time to recharge and just take a break from most things.
As we begin our summer, I find that I am frustrated that my minis aren’t taking advantage of the simple parts of summer. I am frustrated that they seem to be adding stressors to their days instead of releasing them. We are only beginning our summer and there is a lot more to come, but so far we haven’t found our rhythm. We are stumbling over each other trying to figure out how to balance independence with responsibility. How to balance long days without fighting.
I am going to try to take back some of the summer. I want to make sure that I learn from experience. There are parts of my childhood that I can keep living through my adulthood. And with all this screen time surrounding my children, I also want them to just enjoy make believe and lazy days at the beach.
This year, I am going to spend more time enjoying, enjoying the sun, enjoying the flexibility of my schedule, enjoying the endless days and enjoying the small town I am choosing to live in. I can complain about my first week of summer or I can decide to change it. I can set the example of how easy change can be or I can join in the daily misery of fighting. The minis are at a tough age, but so am I. And our time together is going to get less the older they get.
This summer I want to remind myself to let go of some of those big problems. It is the time of year when we can take off some of our layers and head outside. We can walk barefoot and feel the ground beneath us. Summer is the time to fill up on Vitamin D. All the benefits of summer have slowly taken a back seat to things that don’t really matter. And this year I am going to reclaim the fun, reclaim the simplicity, and just let go.