Sweet Summer Child

 Our 'summer kid', who turned into a part-time-all-year kid because, y'know, COVID and schools going virtual, had her last day today. She's off to college.

There was cake.

I've had occasion to think back to my college days recently. It really is the only time in your life--if you're lucky--that you have more control over your day-to-day than you do at any other time. Think about it. You set your own schedule. Yes, within the confines of the master class schedule, but for the most part if you don't want morning classes you can avoid them. You eat what you want, when you want. Your metabolism hasn't broken up with you yet so you can get away with it. You can stay up all hours if you feel like it. Colleges are usually surrounded by easily-walkable or transit-able places to get what you need, from groceries to frozen yogurt to new underpants when you have decided not to do your laundry. 

You can't appreciate it at the time. That's the way it is with most things, really. It only looks wonderful in retrospect. I think it only can look wonderful in retrospect. Our summer kid is going to spend the next four years mostly on her own terms, and she's going to live and grow and learn and try and fail and try again, and while it's happening, she'll be looking forward to the next thing. It's a human foible, our ability to forget to be in the moment. I'm just as guilty of it as the next person. While I don't look back on my college days with a great deal of fondness--everything that was not in England was awful, basically--I do remember the joy of being able to give yourself over to something you're genuinely interested in, being allowed to wrap yourself up in it and indulge in it and not surface for any reason unless you feel like it.

Can't do it these days. Gotta pay the bills. Ah, well. It is what it is.