Oh, Hey there, Summer

Have you ever had someone show up at your house uninvited?  You didn't know they were coming, maybe you were sitting on the couch in your sweats eating popcorn, then all of a sudden, "DING DONG!" someone was there.

Sometimes it's a good surprise, like an out of town friend who decided to visit, and sometimes maybe it's a bad surprise, like your really creepy neighbor who decided to "just drop in and say hi."  Either way, you go into this sudden panic mode, like, "Crap, is my house clean? What can I offer them to eat or drink?  What are we going to do?  Am I wearing a bra??" etc.

That's how I feel about summer this year.  It's probably because I had a snow day only two and a half months ago, and the weather has been generally cold and gross ever since.  Only a few weeks ago we still had frost on the ground in the mornings.  It lulled me into a sense of false security, making me think I had plenty of school year left.  Then, suddenly, BOOM - it's summer.  Get out the barbeque sauce and short shorts.

When did that happen??  Did I totally miss spring?  The beauty of having four seasons is that weather is supposed to transition nicely from one season to another.  Now all of a sudden it's summer, and I'm not ready for it.  The school year ends a week from tomorrow?  WHAT?  I start my summer job soon after that, and I haven't prepared for it at all?  HUH?  My baby sister is graduating from high school tomorrow night?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??  When did all of this happen?  I'm so unprepared!

I feel like I'm scrambling around trying to catch up on a million things that have to be done before summer gets here, but it's Memorial Day.  Summer's here.  I'm just not ready.  I want life to slow down a second - I've got some stuff to do before my baby sister becomes an adult and before my ninth graders leave me forever.  I have more stuff to teach my students before they wander off to their pools and campers and forget about all the stuff they've done in school.  I have more that I want to do with my husband before he becomes a real physical therapist with a real career.  We could claim "poor college student" status until now, but now's he's graduated so guess what?  Now we're just plain poor!  Ahhh!  This summer brings a lot of changes, and I just don't think I'm ready.  I wish I could rewind and (gasp!) bring back the snow.  I can't, though, and life has a way of marching on whether I like it or not.  So I guess all I can do now is squeeze as much as I can out of the rest of this school year, know that it's all going to be okay, and pass the barbeque sauce.