Think about it for a minute. Summer vacation. Remember when months of freedom is what you spent an entire school year living for? Imagine that last day of school. The possibility in the air, the sense of complete abandon, the reality of being able to fully indulge in your own laziness. These things should never be taken lightly, because they never last.   

What's so funny is that each month of that summer break has its own distinct "feel." June is probably the laziest month of the year. You take those first two weeks to decompress and get the stink of school off your skin. July is when you start to feel like a normal human being again, free from the regimented lifestyle that the school schedule forces upon you. Then, of course, August feels like your last month on Earth. Every single moment of life is precious.

You almost forget what school is like. Summer lasts just long enough to let you forget. A cruel trick, actually, because you end up sucker punched in September. The thing is, in hindsight, there's much more education to be had during summer vacation. Certainly more than you learn sitting in a classroom. Summer vacation is life a its most glorious, most desperate...and most heartbreaking. The extremes of life experienced in three short months.

How many summer romances have come and gone? How many pointless adventures that end up having more significance in your mind than you ever thought they would? How many family dramas were you privy to simply because you weren't preoccupied with homework and you actually had an opportunity to pay attention?

Summer, I'm guessing, doesn't exist for adults. Real jobs are year-round circumstances. It's a little sad actually. Those three months a year were definitely an unconscious means to put your own young life into something resembling perspective. Sure, you don’t know it at the time, but I think we do most of our growing up over the summer breaks. School breeds conformity. School fears change. You’re meant to sit in your neat little rows and only speak when spoke to. Only the short breaks between classes provide something akin to summer vacation.

Summer vacation. An event. A period of time. A circumstance that is much more profound than adults would have us believe. I hear that most adults dread summer vacation? When did things get so screwed up? Does the onset of age and maturity have to mean turning your back on the things that were once so important? Makes no sense.

Remember when your expectations of summer were so great and by August you felt somehow cheated because nothing significant happened during those three short months? Meanwhile, you just had a summer that you'll eventually look back on as "the greatest time of your life." So what have we learned from this? How about the idea that value doesn't always have to equal to the occurrence of significant events. Or the notion that even when nothing is happening, something is happening.

Or how about the idea that time can move so slow and yet so fast at the same time? Think about the last day of the school year: sitting in class, two minutes until the bell rings. Those are the slowest two minutes of your life. And yet, summer vacation is a whole three months and they go by in a blink. This (among other things) is why I wish for time control. The ability to create bubbles of frozen time would be invaluable in these kinds of circumstances. When the end of August rolls around, I could just pop myself into one of these things and just...

Slow...

Time...

Down...

Until...

It...

Didn't...

Move...

At...

All...

Let...

The...

World...

Go...

On...

Without...

Me...

While...

I...

Enjoy...

The...

Greatest...

Laziness...

Ever...

Experienced.

But really, is that any way to live? School gives summer the proper context. We can't have the good without the bad, can we? The highs without the lows. Think of it as some sort of cosmic balance. It's rather appropriate if you think about it. Three months of joyous freedom versus nine months of conformist hell. Kinda sums up the ratio of life in general. I miss those times. Have any of you had these kinds of experiences like this?