It's not summer until you've made a to-do list of all the productive things you want to accomplish, and then promptly ignore it. Forget learning Japanese, give up on finishing The Faerie Queene and let's not even start on that screenplay you've been mulling over for years. If it's summer, it's just not going to happen.
But really, who needs productivity? They give you (well, at least us students) time off so you don't . When people asked me what I had planned for this summer, I proudly said “nothing.” And I have lived up to that expectation of defiant laziness.
I'm not sure whether summer went by faster or slower because of my determination to slack off as much as possible. I feel like I only just and now here I am about to , but at the same time, playing seems like an age ago. That's another thing about summer: time is weird.
So even though autumn is drawing near, I can't be too disappointed in this summer. No, I didn't go to Cancun and learn how to surf. No, I didn't backpack the Alps with a German tour guide. And no, I definitely didn't finish that screenplay. But my friends and I agree — when we're in that stage of senescence in which we like to share stories, those stories will come from this summer after high school, when we all, bored out of our minds, decided to get together whenever and make our own fun.
I already knew that the best trips aren't the ones we expect to take and that will always make for an exciting adventure. You can have just as much fun riding in the car listening to an extraordinary album as you can on an expensive vacation... and certainly more than bashing your brains against a typewriter attempting to bang out that script.
I guess what I worry about most is whether or not I'll be able to reconnect with my friends after we've been away, experiencing different lives at college. I hope that we can all grow up to be fully functional adults but, well, not grow up too much.
Because now those fellowships are breaking as slowly the number of friends I have in Brookfield dwindles. I'll see them all again, but in what capacity? If this summer is any indication, then the reunions won't be awkward at all. If friends can have a blast doing nothing more than jamming, or sitting by a tree, or camping, then certainly they can recreate those moments with the same fondness that brought them together in the first place.
Now if you'll excuse, summer's winding down, and I have a screenplay to not write.
