There's something about summer that changes the nature of time. During the school year, everything is compartmentalized into classes, practice, weekends, and sleep. My days are still structured, but its so random and haphazard I have a hard time keeping track of what day it is.
For example, yesterday I got up at about 7:30 to help my dad with chores, then sat in front of the computer for a few hours, absentmindedly watching VH1 while voraciously searching for dorm room supplies on Zappos.com and Amazon.com. Then I took a shower, ate some lunch, test drove the new Tapawingo extension (so quick and breezy!), deposited my paycheck, wandered around Target for precisely 17 minutes, and then went to work at 3 pm.
But even work loses all sense of structure and immediacy. I just started part-time at a children's resale shop after spring break, when the busy season for children's apparel and Johnny Jump-Ups is in full swing. But now that everyone has stocked up on shorts and sleeveless two-pieces, things have slowed to a fairly sluggish pace. For quite a while last night I surreptitiously searched through the Girls Youth 16 section for some summer clothes, or chatted with my coworkers about college plans. The managers actually got me a graduation present, a laundry bag with towels, toothpaste, and even shower gel! That was about the highlight of the night - everything else has blended together in a nondescript blur.
Today, however, my sense of hours, seconds, and minutes is even more relaxed. I gathered up all my course selection material from Notre Dame and sat outside for about an hour, listening to my iPod while trying to decide if I want to continue in Spanish next year for my language requirement or pick up something exotic like Irish or Arabic. But the fact that I can just enjoy the weather while doing something productive makes summer such a wonderful time - if I had to do all that reading and notetaking in March, I'd most likely be stuck at the table in my basement or in a desk at school, cut off from fresh air, sunlight, and anything fun ever.
I'm embracing this lack of restrictions and constraints now, but I don't know if I'll be able to stand it come August. I'm one of those people who hate sleeping in everyday, who hate being late, who hate to just sit around the house and do nothing - at least when I know there are other things I could be doing. I'm a compulsive list-maker, and I think the only way I could be complacent with just lazing around is if I specified a time and place for it on To-Do itineraries.
I actually have to go and do something organized now (a meeting for the 4-H Queen Contest), but I can provide one of my anal-retentive lists for things I need to get done in the near future:
1. Wake up early to work with 4-H animals before doing a job shadow at the Journal and Courier tomorrow morning.
2. Meet some friends after said job shadow to go to a Fall Out Boy concert at Verizon Wireless Music Center.
3. Finish getting my house cleaned up and my pictures put into albums and a tent set up and hell frozen over, etc, before my graduation party on Sunday.
4. Go to five graduation parties on Saturday.
5. Finish my schedule for Notre Dame.
6. Get my MacBook and figure out how the heck it works.
7. Get a tan.
8. Go see a movie or something equally entertaining.
9. Stop making inane lists.
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