I feel sad during the summer. Pretty much every summer, but increasingly more as the years have gone on. I know why; I just don’t know how to fix it.
Here are a few things I have learned about myself. (Also, I am whining.)
Loneliness: During the summer, my children become nocturnal. I do not. I spend my days basically alone while my amazing husband is at work. It’s sad and lonely, but it is not relaxing because….
Chores: I still have cleaning to do. All the cleaning I didn’t do during the school year and said, “I’ll get to that soon,” turns into my daily grind or more accurately my daily grime. This summer I have spent approximately 100 hours sorting and wiping and quietly weeping about how terrible I am at house keeping.
Pain: All the lifting and scrubbing and extra cooking means inevitably my body will hate me. This summer included a series of trips to the podiatrist and one episode of a pulled back. I have taken more Advil this summer than I took in the last decade combined.
Appointments: You know what else gets saved for summer. ALL THE APPOINTMENTS! For everyone. Physicals, teeth cleaning, eye doctors, etc. Anything that other people normally spread out during an entire year, teachers scheduled for summer break. It’s pretty thrilling. NOT!
Travel (or not traveling): For fun, I plan vacations I can’t afford, but during the summer I also get to longingly gaze upon other people’s happy vacation photos. We have decided to for-go summer travel to increase the chances of our kids getting summer jobs. For me, this is a tragic loss, aggravated by the fact that the kids don’t actually get summer jobs. It turned out to be a loose-loose situation.
Relaxation: Here is the biggest kicker of all. Turns out, I can’t do what I really what to do which is lay around reading and binge watching Netflix. It actually makes me sad. It makes no difference what I am reading or watching. Same effect. I desire to mindlessly chill out and watch an entire season of a TV show in a day, but after a few hours of relaxation, my brain will dump a ton of sadness neurotransmitters. (I’m sure that’s this is scientifically accurate.) It’s a real kill joy. Literally.
Back-to-School shopping: And just when I’m having a big pity party about how I never get to do what I want, it’s time to take my kid school shopping. All the fighting over what shoes are acceptable and why he has to buy the longer pants because he’s going to grow and no, I don’t care if the shirt is a bit scratchy because the one you like is 8 gazillion dollars and this one is $20 on sale.
And then, just like that, summer is over, and I am a sad little mommy heading back to work. The end.
