Summer Plans

It’s cliché to say, but time really does have a way of flying by. Slipping by, sneaking by. Tiptoeing at a hurried pace— one month turns into the next, seasons blend, and it’s time to start thinking about summer plans: where should we go this year? Then it’s back-to-school time of year, favorite-season Fall. Football, orange-yellow trees, then the holidays. A dark, cold January-February and it’s time to start thinking about summer again.

It must be that you have to consciously make decisions, take hold of those decisions, be proactive, or you can be swept along in the current of the seasons unfolding again over and over until all of a sudden you are an age you don’t recognize for yourself, doing the same things you’ve been doing for many seasons. You are an age that when given to a stranger, is an age that feels old, older than you, until you realize you’re the same age (or younger) than that stranger, but you don’t feel that old. Well, in some ways you do. Some things have gotten a little harder. Like running. And falling asleep at night. The music is too loud sometimes, which never used to happen. 

Do you look as old as these strangers who seem older than you but are not? Hard to tell one’s own aging from a looks perspective, probably because it sneaks up little by little. Every day you are looking at yourself, so it’s not noticeable until you see an old photo: Oh wow I looked young. Untired. Bright eyed. Smiley. Full cheeked but slim faced. And when did people stop saying: “you look great, you look way younger than your age.” It hasn’t been said in a long time if you’re honest, and that must mean something. 

But these strangers who look older to me— maybe they also seem older because many (most) of them, as well as the friends around you, seem to have figured out how to make big decisions, take control of life, make and save money, buy an apartment, decide to start a family, buy a second home at the beach, lake, mountains, up north, upstate, out east. Did they hold themselves to deadlines? Discuss clearly and seriously and actively with their spouse until a decision was made—"Let’s sit down and hash this out.” At the dinner table, heads together over calendars, under an overhead light. Like thieves planning a heist. Just adults trying to control the passage of time, to combat ‘no decision is a decision.’

But how do they find time? And when there is time, don’t they want to just have dinner, watch a show, and go to bed early? Don’t they find themselves saying, “let’s talk about it later.” 

It’s only Wednesday, such a long week. But on the weekends, you want to have a little fun, to enjoy time with friends, a dinner out, drinks, a show, and then relax, rest up, get ready for the week ahead. 

There’s a real feeling of being an outsider sometimes, looking at these people who seem older but are not. How did we get here? How have they settled into a full life of things you also want, and always imagined having as an adult, while you feel too old, frankly, to start being proactive about these things. How is it you are at once too young to realize you’re old, but too old to start doing many things? Too old to change careers, to buy your first apartment, the starter home. To think about starting a family— do the math. Everything is heavier now, weighty commitments. No time to make mistakes. 

But isn’t it true that you could think you’ve run out of time for things—the timing isn’t right, it’s too late, you should have done this before—only to do nothing and realize five, ten years later how foolish you were to think five, ten years ago was too late. Now it really is too late, how stupid.

And then you have drinks with a girlfriend who has figured it all out, who has made and saved money with her husband—the nice apartment, the summer house. Who is a mother, raising a city-kid daughter. And she says to you, looking defeated: “Sometimes I just think, is this it?” You smile and blink your eyes. Nod your head like you know what she means. But you don’t know what it means to have all those things.

You don’t know what it’s like to have a house you own, or even an apartment. You don’t know what it’s like to be a mother, to have and hold your child, to recognize your mother’s eyes or your grandfather’s chin in another being, to carry on a family. 

And so, even with it bothering you, hanging over your head, in your head, a cloud of static, you go home, you cook dinner and watch a show together, it’s been a long week. And then it’s the weekend, Thank God It’s Friday. Let’s try that new restaurant, we need to get together with Theo and Emily. And Sunday, you can’t wait to read, relax after brunch. You need time to just do nothing. To brace yourself for the week, order take-out and watch a show. Early to bed, it’s going to be a long week. And it’s Wednesday again, halfway to the weekend, then Sunday rest up before the week ahead. You say wow time really flies. The Fall flew by, the holidays were a blur. Dark, cold January-February passed quickly. And, it’s time to start thinking about summer again.

-Lillian Bond

Lillian Bond is an avid reader who suffers from wanting write each time she reads something she loves. She writes a fair amount but has never tried to be published before, and hopes this resonates with someone!