The Anatomy of a Summer Vacation

When you're a kid, there's nothing you look forward to more than summer vacation; three months of no homework, sunny days, adventures with your friends, family vacations (unless you're a middle child and in that case, it's a coin toss) - three months of lazy in-between.

When you grow up, those same things fall to the wayside as life takes over. No longer do you have three consecutive months to sit, roll over, and play illiterate. Long summer days are filled with responsibility and billable work hours (unless you prescribe to the freelance way of living and in that case, perhaps your days are not consecutively filled with anything of the work-related persuasion).  Deciding how to spend your limited "free time" pretty much becomes the same game that you played last month, except now you can add activities that are warm-weather related (unless you live somewhere that's warm all the time and in that case, perhaps you should just ignore the last line).


However, there's still a strange urge to play hooky (which may be spelled hookey or hookie depending on which dictionary you're relying on).  Even though I landed a j-o-b after undergrad that gave me the summers off, I've never really had the luxury of taking advantage of them in the same way I did when I was a kid.  The first two summer's I scraped by with part time jobs trying to make ends meet, and the last two summer (including this one which is coming to an end in t minus 2 days), I did the same - except I added grad school classes to the mix.

I long for a lazy summer.  One where money isn't the hindrance of my good times and responsibility isn't the backbone of my spontaneity.  I gave myself one week this summer to have an irresponsible good time, to chase something I want, to let the teenage girl in me take over my cerebellum - the whole heart over head conundrum.  I strongly recommend it.  Everything you ran away from will still be waiting when you get back (I promise); the bills and the papers and the friends you don't ever seem to have enough time for aren't going anywhere (unless you've reached the due date and in that case, don't forget that paying bills or turning in a paper late often results in a penalty).      

::insert cliche about life being short and enjoy the ride here::  Summer is once again reaching its finale and the credits are starting to roll in, but when you're an adult you have the advantage of being able to take a vacation during other seasons (unless you can't and in that case, this paragraph is not really for you).  You never get too old to have some quality kid-like time.