Summer

Journal for Christa—

In exactly one week, school will be over. The ending of a school year might be described as—intense to the power of 10. There’s the push for the last piece of literature, the last essay, the last test—the last outcome to turn in, the last book, checked and shelved. Then, like a switch, with the last downbeat of “Pomp and Circumstance,” it is over.

On Monday the alarm will not ring, but I’ll awake at 5:15 just the same. Though the switch is flipped, it takes a week or so to settle into the summer me. Change takes time—even the ones you look forward to—whether it’s a new job, a new baby, or a new relationship. It’s strange how I take note of the metamorphosis into summer—feeling like I need to be somewhere when I don’t—thinking it can wait for tomorrow, and it really can—

This summer I plan to read more than clean; bake cupcakes (pink and green, of course), go to the zoo with most of our family in Kansas City, take pictures of Breck and Helen in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and sneak over to France with Jay.

Lori, my pastor’s wife, once told me I am a totally different person in the summer. I’ve never quite known what to make of that. Somehow, I don’t think it’s good. Sometimes, I wonder where the real me does live. Right now, I think it’s in summer, and I’m just waiting for the last measure of that song!