Summer

I can't wait for this summer to be over. I can't believe I'm even writing that! It has been way too hot, way too humid, and because of the medication I'm on, frankly, I am sick of sweating.

Summer doesn't mean to me what it used to when I was a kid. It was freedom from school and summers in Old Forge. It was the yardstick I used to measure the differences in me from one year to the next. It was playing outside until darkness fell and someone's parent was calling them in the house. Summer was riding bikes and playing jacks.

As I got older, July and August became lazy days. I would listen to my albums with the volume turned up while lying on the living room floor and the windows wide open. The windows remained open when I played the piano and the breeze made the drapes dance. Sometimes I would wonder if anyone could hear me. I hated playing in front of people. Playing was my stress reliever. It was my escape. I didn't need an audience for that.

As my responsibilities grew summer's joy waned and the years all just became one run on sentence.

When people talk and laugh about going back in time to a certain age to live it again, I never say I would want to do that. There is too much to have to learn again plus I am finally comfortable with who I am. What I do wish I could recapture are the summers and the feelings I had during them when I was young. It wasn't all sunshine and apple pie, but they were still good.