Perhaps it's because I've been a student for almost 32 years, but summer vacation is really a state of being for me. Even when I worked at Kinko's full time, summer vacation (when i wasn't working and taking classes) was this special time. You guys know what i'm talking about...
it's that feeling when you're driving down the road on a summer's evening and you feel like rolling down your window, cranking up the radio, and driving around those back roads. But summers also, always, make me nostalgic. If it hadn't been for summer nostalgia, I would have never gotten back in touch with my friends Terri and Sandy Nutgrass. Summers make me crave to recapture my youth -- for some reason that I can't quite explain. I want to be a teenager again, for a short while, with no real responsibliities -- which wasn't even my teenage reality -- right now, I'd be happy to feel carefree and not have to worry about changing a diaper, or stopping a squabble in the back seat. I'd be happy to drive alone with the the soupy air rushing through my hair, listening to music, without a thought in my head or having to listen to some inane 5 year old chatter.
It's the same as meeting someone that you really liked in college -- and didn't that almost always happen in the summer too? And how much fun it was just to sit outside on the steps and talk about anything and everything. To get to know someone new - and learn something new about yourself at the same time. I miss that -- more so in the summer than any other time of the year. it just makes me sigh - it makes me search online for old high school people -- there aren't any college people really -- i don't know - summer is a time for memories i guess -- and i suppose that's why i try to go and do with the boys in the summer -- to fight that i wish i were younger and carefree sort of mood -- and that's why i'm writing here today - because there is no one that i really want to get in touch with - to find - to write - it never works out well -- i'm not good at keeping and maintaining friendships - as attested by the sheer minute number of people who are my friends that i don't work with - and the fact that no one struggles to keep in touch with me either - i don't know what that says about me - what that means - it's just the way it is... and summer brings it out and puts it front and center --
