The un-summer

This summer has seemed to be lackluster. There have been no exotic family trips (though I did go to NYC, it was not the same and not w/family). No kids were born (though Ella did celebrate her first birthday). We've had no major construction projects, where in past years it was remodeling the house, building the carport, etc. I have, of course been working on the pirate ship steadily, I guess, but that is not yet a milestone project.

I should not belly ache. My best friends are in more complicated straits:

• wife battling and recovering from cancer
• being deported to Afghanistan
• enduring a liver transplant

...while I am just boo-hooing being bored and overworked.

Nonetheless, things have seemed humdrum. Yes, I taught 3 extra summer sections. Yes, I've kept the farm mowed and maintained. Yes, I've been home most of the time for people. Yes, I have my health.

I just feel like 1/2 a guy, like I'm running on battery backup and not full-charge. I look around at all that I've not done, all that I'm not doing, and I get more and more undone. I think of how I longed for summer, but that now that it's waning, I'm realizing (as I do with every season and semester change, everyone's birthday, every turn of the calendar) the moment is passing.

Summer....it escapes me.