chasing summer

This summer, more than ever, I've found myself torn about this season. I am trying to soak up every ounce of it and catch myself when dirty words of complaint about the heat and humidity drift from my tongue. I remember a mere five months and frigid February ago when July felt SO FAR away, I was convinced we may not even make it April and now I feel like I blinked from May first to this eleventh day of July.  I'm trying to embrace these few months filled with a crazy schedule and several mini and fun vacations, though it makes this whole "real life" gig rather uneasy.

And while I have a whole train of thought with this post, typing that first paragraph just made me feel extremely selfish...ugh. Moving on....

After being away from home for nearly 2 weeks and logging hundreds of miles on the black top between here and there, I wandered through our front door alone late last night and found myself immediately yearning for my routine {working out, work, meetings, work, evenings with friends...rinse and repeat!} but completely bummed that I couldn't keep on the next leg of summer travels with Collin. I went to sleep exhausted, sad, relieved & comfortable chanting myself to sleep repeating "this is the real world baby girl....you've been a part of this song and dance for many years now, get over yourself."

It worked. After a day of laundry, rest, kisses from my favorite 2 year old and a quiet house, I'm ready.  I'm ready for a new week and counting down the eleven days til I'm back on the road again with my ole boy to the Carolina coast. But over the last month or so I've had the most incredibly vivid memories that I haven't considered in years...memories of summers growing up, as a kid and in high school. Summers when there truly wasn't a worry in the world, the days seemed to last for weeks and by the time that first day of school came around nearly three months later, we always seemed ready.

Every minute spent playing outside on the farm with our friends, cutting the grass over and over, going to soccer and basketball day camps and secretly missing Pallie as she would go away to camps for weeks at a time.  Eating fresh veggies around the kitchen table in our sweltering house, remembering the rhythm & hum of our attic fan as if it were my heartbeat, keeping time.  In high school we "laid out" and swam a lot, concocted some of the most hilarious and ridiculous "events" somehow getting dozens of friends on board and I spent nearly every single morning at the gym or in the weight room for basketball workouts. Time didn't matter, the daylight seemed to last forever and I spent those years creating the imagery of what summer means to me today.

Through these multiple memories I've become so intrigued by the honesty that comes with the stereotype of summer: fun in the sun, relaxing vacations and an excuse to indulge; indulge in a homemade ice cream & frozen margaritas kind of way. And I hope more memories keep flooding my mind.  They make me want to dig into tons of old pictures when I go back home to see my parents, to feel like I can hold, grasp and get a even a little bit closer to those times that suddenly don't feel so far away.  They make me want to try and recreate those feelings through a veggie dinner and capture the flag in the backyard, though I know that's fairly impossible.  

It's true, I'm a big girl now. I've got real responsibilities, a house to keep, bills to pay and a blackberry signal light that won't stop blinking...logging email after email, reminders of work, people that are depending on little ole me. And I've got livin to do, finding the balance between the sweet freedom of summer and the tasks let me enjoy that bliss.

Maybe it's the post-vacation blues.  Maybe it's the dread that comes with playing catch up tomorrow.  But really, I love this concept of a time of year when the grass is greener, tomatoes are candy, thunder roars then rainbows appear and we have the choice to enjoy it all; the best way we know how.  As I re-fill my suitcase in just over a week, I hope I'll channel a summer memory from over a decade ago, one that I haven't thought of in quite a while.  And I hope that when I walk out my front door alone, I'll appreciate the heat steaming off the pavement and that I'll keep my heart at ease...knowing I'm living one of those memories that in fifteen years will seem like long ago. I'm living in a summer that sooner than later I'll wish would have lasted forever.