Summertime Sadness

As another summer draws to a close I find myself contemplating the essence of time. I know everybody always complains about how fast summer passes and it's true, but this depresses me not only because summer is over but because it forces me to think about how fast our lives pass. It truly feels like just last week I was anxiously waiting for the bell to ring thus releasing me to an endless summer and I am already blogging about returning.

How sad is it that for most of us we are just blindly holding on as the hours pass waiting for our next ounce of freedom or big event that will inevitably last shorter than the time we spend waiting for it? Students wait nine months starting on the first day of school for just three months of summer. That means we spend triple our time waiting than we will spend enjoying what we are waiting for. Yeah, I am excited to be a senior but once the rush of a new year passes I know I am going to fall back into this trap of waiting.

Soon it will be, I can't wait for homecoming: an event that most of Rocklin spends a month stressing and planning for that is only one night of our lives. Then it will be, I can't wait for Thanksgiving break, then Christmas break, then Spring break, and so on and so forth. I spend the majority of my year waiting to return to Lake Shasta where my family spends just one week every summer. Literally from the minute I am done packing I think to myself, "I can't wait for next year." Therefore I spend 51 weeks every year waiting for just one that I get to spend in my favorite place on Earth. Thinking that makes me so depressed.

People like to say "live each day like it's your last" and while this is a great theory it is so unrealistic. It would be great to have the luxury of living each day to the fullest, but stuff needs to get done, life has responsibilities. You're telling me that when you are cramming for AP tests, that is how you would spend your last day on Earth? No, but the possibility that it is your last day does not diminish.  The reality is our last day on Earth will most likely be just like any other only with a different ending.