Summer Lovin’… Had Me a Blast? Happened Too Fast?

The older I get… the more pressure I seem to place on summer.  I’ve attempted to examine this dynamic but I’ve only managed to cobble together a few pale theories.Is this because______?A).  I live in New England.  Our winters and springs are long and cold. It seems to take summer forever to arrive. When it does it’s time to get cracking on boating, beach-going, lobster rolls, and all manners of summer fun?

B.) Time feels like it’s passing faster than ever, therefore I need to really make summer “count” because “it’ll be over before we know it”?

C.) I want to futilely recapture some summer romance of days long gone by, while being in complete denial that this is no longer truly possible because I am a full-fledged grown-up?

D.)  Unlike any of the other seasons that come and go with a slow fade, summer crashes closed?

I suspect the answer is a synthesis of all of the above.

Pathetic as it sounds, and I am not proud to admit this, I started to feel slightly melancholic on August 1st.

I know this is not the optimum way to be, since I strive to practice living in the moment — every moment.

Most of the summer, I felt myself failing to practice this… practice.

Then I reminded myself that there is still time to pack it all in. The friends we want to see! The places we want to visit! The cool green salty water we want to plunge in! Go! Go! Go!

But that’s pressure, see?  Maybe for adults, there are no lazy, hazy dayz anymore.

As children, summer offers a promise of a certain ineffable magic that is hard to shake (catching fireflies at twilight anyone?)

I don’t place intense expectations on the other seasons. I appreciate their special qualities: apple cider and hayrides, snowfall and reading by the fire, fresh green leaves and robins paratrooping into the yard.

I love all of it… but maybe not as much as I love rapid-fire summer.

Why isn’t summer slow anymore?  Summer lasted eons when I was a kid.

Now, it whooshes by like a firework making its ascent.

Believe me, I am not looking for sympathy here.  Nor am I trying to whine.  I really am just trying to understand my experience.

Writing enables me to get clear on subjects in a way that mulling them over in my mind does not.

This small act of articulating these thoughts here enables me to find peace that summer 2011 is screeching to a halt even as I write.

Ironically, writing about summer’s all too immediate ending has brought me a sense of unexpected relief.  It’s like a turquoise liquid dip on a blistering day in July for my psyche.

Ahhh…

Now, I feel ready to embrace autumn and the crunchy leaf wonders it beholds.

* How did summer 2011 feel to you?  I hope it was spectacular! Please share.