It’s a Friday in July.
Fridays are always lovely, but they become even more amazing once summer hits. Sitting inside an office on a sunny Friday afternoon isn’t the word-for-word Webster’s Dictionary definition for purgatory, but I’d argue it’s pretty close. I keep needlessly volunteering myself to run errands for people in my office that need to be done in downtown Jtown, just to get outside for ten minutes. That plan worked twice today, and I kept trying to make up other errands I could do. Volunteering to walk to Mayville yesterday to pick up paperwork we’re waiting for didn’t work out, strangely enough. (Maybe next week?)
I’m always surprised by how great summers are around here. Not saying the weather’s always perfect - this is still western NY after all - but summers can be incredible. The temperature usually tops off around high 70s/low 80s and we actually see the sun most days. This summer’s been beautiful so far.
According to the calendar, it hasn’t been summer for even a month yet. My calculations are kind of, well, we’ll just call them different. As in, it’s summer once it feels like summer. So I’m thinking it’s been summer since the start of June, once the persistent spring rains finally stopped pummeling Chautauqua County every day. Therefore, it’s been summer for a month and a half.
This summer’s definitely been different. And packed. I’ve spent a week in Pittsburgh with kids from my youth group volunteering with the Pittsburgh Project. [You should do it too! This ministry’s fantastic and has brought tremendous change in some neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.] I went to Cleveland to watch the Yankees play on the Fourth. [Pathetic loss to the Indians. At least the fireworks after the game were good.] I’ve done a bunch of the classic summer-on-the-lake things: sailing, kayaking, bonfires, wedding crashing, finding every excuse under the sun to go out for ice cream, the usual.
Oh, and I end up at camp the rest of the time. Surprising, I know.
Somewhere in the midst of all that I’ve managed to sleep a little, but I can’t remember when.
I think we all tell ourselves that summer will be a time when we'll relax, only do the things we absolutely must do, and let life slow down. That's not my reality at all. The truth is, I let all the boring-unfun-mundane-blech things that I never really wanted to do in the first place fade out in the summer, and I fill up all that open time with fun stuff. I've known this for a while, but I'm not very good at turning down an invite to go do something fun, so I've ended up filling every spare second with something this summer.
Until this week. I've actually managed to reign myself in this week and be intentionally anti-social a couple of days. Example: I turned down an invitation to go out to Wing City last night so I could stay home and read. Win! I went on a couple walks with Jesus (that may sound a little odd, but I pray better when I move). I went to bed before midnight.
Now that I'm all rested up and re-centered, I'll probably jump right back into my crazy schedule, but what else is summer for?! I'll sleep again once autumn hits.
