These last couple of weeks I have been seeing posts on social media from friends and family who are getting geared up to head back to school. The ads are out for school supplies and the atmosphere of excitement and resentment for the long encapsulating machine of education starts back up again. In a few weeks time elementary students, high schoolers and college students alike will all be starting new subjects and meeting new friends, and in a few months time, everyone will be ready for a break. This is how the education wheel turns. We measure our lives by semesters, quarters, breaks and holidays.
I even feel myself falling into this routine until I realize that I have broken free of this cycle. And I'm not quite sure how to feel about it. I used to dread the long semesters and look forward to the breaks and holidays, but now upon receiving a diploma and being forced into the reality of adulthood, I have entered the perpetual and less discernible cycle of life.
I was in school for the majority of my life and I remember constantly thinking, "I just can't wait until I am completely done and I never have to open a textbook again!" Well, I have now reached that point. And exciting as it is to be done with college and moving on to my next step in life, this dawning realization is somewhat anticlimactic. No, I don't have to sit in school anymore, but I get to look for a year-round job that does not allow for free-spirited, worry-free, jobless and fun-filled summers. The glory of summer has dissolved into the habitual rotation of another season. School used to be the constant, but now, reality and adulting are the constants.
I don't want people to think that finishing school is not all it's cracked up to be, but it isn't all butterflies and unicorns like you might think. For all the younger kids out there, graduation does not eternal summer make. But that doesn't mean that we have to let the joys that came with summer die out with age. We are now free to live our dreams, grow as adults and make new and lasting memories. And we don't have to be limited by summer or breaks or holidays! We are now learning to make every moment of life and every season of life as fun and exciting as the summer season of yester-year.
So for all of the millennials who are in the same boat with me and who miss their "summers," let's break the stereotypical fun season cycle and make every season of life enjoyable. Reality doesn't have to break us down and wear us out. We are free to pursue our dreams and have a little summer fun along the way. In the end, school will not have composed the majority of our lives, and we will have learned to live without it's cycle for a much longer period of time. So as the time-old idea of "summer" dissolves, let the new-found joy of "life" prevail!
