I am Having a 90's Summer

The R&R of It All

I am having a 90’s summer.

This was a conscious decision I made in the spring of this year.

I missed the summer.

A true summer.

What is that?

Let me tell you.

One where social media was basically, a far-off thought.

Dial-up took fifteen years, and you had to make sure no one needed the landline for a phone call. 

Where you would have vacations and lake days, read for hours, running around aimlessly with or without direction.

Finding Mapquest directions to be a joke, as you printed off five pages of mostly ads.

Asking Jeeves to help you find what Google now does in mere seconds.

As a child, we were able to take library trips with our mom and my sibling to find the next best read.

I once read fifteen books for one free book (lol). The library had an incentive, and I wanted in.

My mom would have us do math and science in the mornings during the summers and plan educational “field trips,” taking the neighborhood kids with us (it was a lot of fun). 

My neighbors down the street and I would ride our bikes to the cemetery, eating our packed picnic lunches at strangers' graves (we were weird kids).

We would splash around in the above-ground pool my parents got us doing summersaults and handstands, drinking from the outside hose. 

Neighborhood block parties would be a sign of the weekend, as the adults made daiquiris, the dads would crack open beers -- Each household allowing their kids to run aimlessly outside and in everyone’s respective houses as the adults gathered in one driveway to supervise their kids and socialize with one another. 

Those would be group pizza nights.

The best.

We wouldn’t see time -- just sky, sunsets, and the final call before heading off to bed. 

Waking up to participate in bible camps and sports camps — trying to have as many lake days as one could muster. 

You would sit and dream as you soaked in the sun.

Summers, as you age, of course, look a bit different.

You work and sprinkle in a week off here this month — Maybe a weekend off towards the end of that month.

But even so --

I wanted to feel the reality of summer at her best.

To ground myself in her truth, in her respite, and her nourishment that only the sun and nature can give.

I’ve made limits on what I will do and will not do -- Obligations that will be met and establishing my boundaries with my time (this may be how I live the rest of my life).

Honestly, my generation has had to be go-go-go since before we were of the age to work.

I don't know about you, but as a kid, I was a hustler baby.

Even when I am on vacation, I tend to allow myself to find excuses to do little things that would be considered work.

Not this time.

I took ten days for myself.

It was amazing.

The grind, I realized, will still be there when I get back.

Rest is part of the grind.

I once had this conversation with my hairdresser who I shared my workout theory with.

You can be really consistent and disciplined for bouts of your life, or you can be consistently inconsistent (yet consistent) because you show up as life allows for your entire life.

As you grow, you will have to take steps back.

Your body will need rest, but the workout will still be there, and you have to be willing to show up when your body is ready.

You know?

An entire life of workout grind is better than six months of one bout of workout grind (in my humble opinion). 

As you peel back away into your life, staring at the iPhone as if it were a Nokia in 2004, you peel back layers to the Fahrenheit 451 of it all. 

It does seem bleak.

Cool, at times, but bleak at best -- Amazing because, in this day and age, anyone can do almost anything they dream up.

It can also be scary because it does look a lot like 'Lord of the Flies' as you tune into the ether of the world news. Whose son is that running that foreign country? Making those risky decisions?

Whose daughter agreed to this 'pick me' decision, throwing down all progress? 

When you realize it has everything to do with others and nothing to do with you, even if it does affect you, you can move more freely in your life.

There really are people out there who believe there isn’t enough pie for everyone.

Or that they’ll decide how much pie you get (if any at all).

Did you know you can make your own pie? 

God will always have the final say, the last laugh, the victory. 

Do you remember the episode of Dr. Who where dragon people had equal rights, then they did not (it was a few episodes over a few seasons, I think?)

Or the “moisturize me” villain who tried to kill everyone on the spaceship?

That is how the world feels right now.

But even with the earth spinning, when you allow yourself to rest — you get the best view and clarity. 

Try it if you have not already.

Embrace the pace of summer you once knew as you grew into adulthood.

For me, the nineties summer is where it is at.

xx

Nikita