The best thing about Utah, in my opinion, is our four seasons. By that I mean, we have four distinct seasons that exhibit the prototypical spring, summer, fall and winter characteristics. Our springs bring new bright blossoms and green grasses. Summer, scorching, dry heat and an abundance of tomatoes and peaches. Fall, mountainsides blanketed in red, yellow and orange-leafed trees. And winter, ski resorts with powdery white peaks. It’s the best thing about Utah, these seasons.
And the best thing about these seasons is that they last a little too long. Or at least two of them feel like they do.
One could argue that spring and fall often feel too short. Sometimes we get a cold, snowy spring that switches overnight to 90-degree days in May. Or a September that makes all the eager sweater-wearers break into a sweat if they step outside mid-afternoon, followed immediately by a snowstorm on Oct. 1.
But winter and summer last, reliably, just a little too long.
By February, after three very cold months, I’ve usually bookmarked on Zillow all of my favorite houses for sale in San Diego. I’m so desperate for sunlight that I’ll sit in any sunny spot in my home, even if it’s on the floor. Like a cat.
But for summer, it’s not the weather necessarily that makes it feel a week or two too long —though I do feel pretty ready to be done with the upper-90s-degree weather and have caught myself staring longingly at the sweatshirts in my closet. But really, it’s how long the children have been home from school that makes summer feel eternal.
I’m sure there are parents who are more organized than I am or at least have a better sense for how to appropriately pace the activities summer vacation. I am not one of those parents. My lack of both organization and pacing results in, every year, a front-loaded summer filled with everything on my kids’ bucket lists. We’re at the zoo one day and setting up a lemonade stand the next. We’re taking road trips and going on hikes and visiting all the local pools before June has turned to July. But by August, I’ve run out of steam, and by mid-August, screen time limits do not exist. When a child informs me for the 70th time in a day that they would like a snack, I simply point at the cupboard where the crackers are kept. June me would have baked some cookies or created a veggie platter. August me is too tired.
I take some comfort in knowing that I’m not alone. Every parent of youngish children I interacted with during the first part of August said something along the lines of, “We’re really looking forward to school starting,” or “I think we’re ready for some structure again.”
And the kids feel it too, reticent as they are to admit it.
As much as they claimed to not want school to start again, there was a pep in their step during back-to-school shopping and when they walked into their classrooms on the first day. I, of course, have the accompanying anxiety that comes with the start of each new year as a little bit of my heart goes with them into their schools every day. But we were all ready for things to return to the natural order. Because summer break lasted just a little too long.
It’s worth noting, I think, that the same thing happens by the end of every school year. The backpacks are falling apart, the lunchboxes went missing months ago, and getting to school on time becomes nigh on impossible as we long for the lazy mornings of summer those last few weeks of school.
It reminds me of pregnancy, which, if everything goes as it should, always feels a bit too long. Actually, a lot too long. I remember thinking during the ninth month of one of my pregnancies that I would be willing to let the doctor cut me in half if it meant I would no longer be pregnant. It’s almost necessary to feel some impatience in order to truly be ready for the next thing. Good things come to those who wait, and also to those who have no choice but to wait.
My kids are all back in school now and the mornings, when we’re rushing to get three kids to three different learning institutions, feel a bit crisp and cooler than they have in months.
We all have more energy as we can sense the next season approaching. We had a great summer, or a great top half of summer, but all good things must end — a couple of weeks after they feel like they should.