Today is the last day of summer break. Big, huge, sad sigh. I've been thinking about all of the things we did this summer and how we also just lazed about and took an honest to goodness break. We used to sit down at the beginning of every summer and write down our hopes and dreams for the three months ahead. The first few weeks we'd start scratching things off, one by one, until a few weeks later when we'd lose the list and start feeling rather unmotivated to do the things on it anyway.
Come the middle of August, I'd frantically start searching for the crumpled, forgotten about list and notice that we'd only scratched off about three things. I'd feel those familiar pangs of guilt when I'd see on the actual piece of paper just how little we'd done. Then I'd worry that I hadn't created a summer to remember and that I'd blown the only sunshine we were going to see until next June (or July). That would make me feel even more anxious and irritable about the cold months ahead and then… Well, you get the idea.
This summer, I stopped with the lists. (I know, radical!) I didn't care what we accomplished over the summer and I hoped that the days could just be what they were (that's what they were to the rest of my family anyway). I knew it was going to zip right by like it always does so I thought, Why not set the bar low and minimize my risk for guilt pangs later? It was such a good decision! I had no idea how much power that single piece of paper had over me. How just by looking at it would cause all of my inadequacies to bubble to the surface. Who knew that all I had to do was admit right up front that our summer was going to be as lazy as it always was and Presto! No guilt!
And then a funny thing happened. As we settled into our unstructured ways, our summer started to take on a form all its own—without planning, without lists. For the kids, the summer shaped up to be The Summer of Swimming. I signed them up for their usual lessons but something different happened this year. This time they pushed themselves to try things they'd never tried before. They gave each other pep talks and cheered each other on. They really wanted to swim this time. Michael zipped over to the pool every day on his lunch break and it was the only place any of us wanted to be. Which means we were all there to witness one of my favorite moments of all time—a moment I'll never forget—the moment that Perry put his face in the water.
If you have a child that has willingly submerged him or herself in the water since birth then you will not be able to relate to this scenario. But if you have a child like mine, who has taken swimming lessons on and off at various pools with various teachers, week after week, summer after summer, and never once gotten his face wet, then you will understand why the three of us clapped and whistled and cheered his name when it finally happened. And when I saw other parents smiling and clapping for us with a sort of collective appreciation of this monumental feat, well, I had to work hard to keep the tears from flowing and missing the moment entirely.
The summer was sprinkled with other bits of goodness, too, like picnics and bike rides and playing in the yard and self-serve frozen yogurt and visits to the zoo and trips to the beach and monkey-in-the-middle and basketball and tennis and a new rat but when all is said and done, I'll remember this as the summer we accomplished so much by doing not much at all.
