I Think About You In The Summertime

I don't know if it's hot where you are, but damn, it's hot here.

You know the kind of hot that takes your breath away, the sweltering humidity that fills your lungs with a thick heaviness that leaves you feeling like you've gained 20 pounds within an instant. It's the kind of hot that makes you want to avoid going outside, ever. Where lemonade and iced tea become more of a remedy than an icon of the South, where sweat develops in places you never knew it could, and where the sun feels like it's going to burn your skin right off your body.

Summer has arrived with a fierceness usually reserved for July or August, not early June. Alas, it must have been my expressed thankfulness for the unusually cool, unusually long spring that ushered in the beast. A reminder that perfection is never long achieved.

Funny how her arrival always triggers the same faded memories. Kate wrote about it, so I know I'm not the only one who feels it. But feel it, I do.

I drew pause as well this weekend while at a local farmers market, and then sitting beside a pool for relief. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I ate strawberries that tasted like strawberries. They smelled and tasted as sweet and as familiar as childhood. The pool with it's chlorine and oily suntan lotion film, felt like the same cool water I dove into summer after summer all those years before. The blanket of heat, the thickness of the air, wrapped around me so tightly this time. It's made me yearn for days gone by, for simplicity, and for the heaven that is 12-weeks off in a row. Ah, the forgotten vacation...where in my youth the only thing I had to care about was whose house to play at and who to play with. Then the summers where I was minimally tasked with stalking certain boybands and determining the precise time Slimy and I would begin our day of shopping and eating at McDonald's. And finally, by those too few precious summers spent in freedom, scattered around Columbus landmarks with the "Biddy Posse" and the boys who stole our hearts.

Yes, the summer is unofficially here.

How I long for a vacation, for a reprieve of responsibility, for lazy days that stretch on into the weeeeeeee hours of the night. It seems that summer sweetness has triggered something in me that makes me miss my friends like crazy right now. A feeling reminicent of the last day of the college semester where we'd have to say goodbye to the comfort of each other, and go home to our different towns and cities for a few months, inevitably, alone. Today, I wish for nothing more than to be with the four of you, again. Somewhere in a place where the summer holds us tight...sitting around an umbrellaed table, laughing, swapping stories of our lives, reminiscing about the people we used to be, blissfully unaware of all we have become. Sitting here today, longing to be collectively together with you again, on the beach, this time as better prepared 30-somethings, all in different places, some in different stages, just happy to be as we are, just thankful to be together.

Summertime, where pilgrimages to New England with Nana & Johnny were the norm, and the Kangamangus Highway meant swimming in cold, crystal clear water...where I can still see the green and feel the thickness of my Grandparent's well-manicured lawn and feel the sway of the Olentangy bridge to Whetstone Park on the 4th of July...Simple, peaceful, wonderful summertime.

For today, I just wish it was a little less "summer," and that we all might have (had) a little more time.