Oh, I’m one of “those” people. I live all year long for summer and the day after July 4th, I’m looking at fall decorations. It’s a sickness and there ought to be a cure. I try to fight it and it does me no good. So this year, in a desperate attempt to break the curse, I’m embracing my Pumpkin Pam while embracing my Margarita Mary. Does it sound like the equivalent of a football Hail Mary? Of course. But it’s all I’ve got.
Digging deep, I recognize that there is a reason I love fall so much and it has a lot to do with summer and enjoying the seasons. Summer is that blow-your-doors-off season. You kinda just let it all hang out there. It’s an incredibly busy season while you try to live as much of the good life as you can before winter shuts you in again. So, every weekend is busy – whether you’re socializing or not – and the weeks themselves fill up with those extra summer tasks of mowing, trimming and taking care of your outdoor spaces. It is an absolutely fabulous time of the year.
But…
Well, it’s also the tiniest bit exhausting. I remember the old Lipton Summertime Lemonade commercial where they show a kid riding a bike down a country dirt road with high grass on either side. The narrator talks about summer as carefree days that are slow and easy. I loved that commercial. It tapped into everything I want and wanted summer to be. I also fail to live that commercial.
Every summer, I promise myself days are going to be slow and easy. I’m not going to work that much, I’m going to focus on home and making sure we are ready by Thursday evening to go into a nice, relaxing weekend with nothing to do but putter in the garden, go for a bike ride and have a campfire. Problem is, when I’m working as much as I’m currently working, there is no easy week prep leading into a carefree weekend. Instead, I roll into Friday morning a bit out of breath and with a serious sense of accomplishment that I managed to get it all done. While a fleetingly good feeling, it doesn’t set us up for the Summertime Lemonade commercial.
And that is the perfect segue to fall… .
Fall does what the commercial promised. The grass stops growing so fast and I’m mowing once every 10 days instead of every five. Those work projects that exploded in late May/early June finally wind down in mid-September. The garden yields come in and one by one, the rows go fallow. More globally, the kids go back to school and the social calendar winds down to refocus on the school calendar.
And we all collectively pause to take a breath. Weekends are no longer about cramming in as much life as you can possibly afford to squeeze in. The weekday slows. Life settles itself down. As the days get shorter, you can’t work as late in the yard, making it easier to enjoy a quiet evening. Soon enough, your pulse starts to slow and you take one of those deep, cleansing breaths that is half-sigh, half-relief.
Fall becomes what summer promised to be.
For some reason, it happens every single year.
I had hoped that this year it wouldn’t, but I got busy at work (again) and it’s hard to turn down work and money when it truly makes the world go round. Plus, in our lead-up to retirement, every dollar I earn goes straight to the retirement coffers. We also always have a busy set of tasks for the summer. Between the garden and getting firewood in, we are already stretched a little thin. Add in any other special project and we are overstretched and sprinting through the season.
That’s why, I believe, I’m a Pumpkin Pam. It’s less about welcoming cold, dreary days and dark nights and more about needing to take a breath. Somewhere, deep inside, my Margarita Mary winces in pain. She’s really trying and she would point out that it isn’t necessarily her fault that summer is not as enjoyable as I dream it will be. I actually feel a little bad for Mary. She got strapped with high expectations when the demands were also going to be great. Sigh.
Once again, it’s early July and I’m fighting back my Pumpkin Pam to give Margarita Mary a real shot at owning my persona. But this time, I’m hoping that acknowledging the reason why will give Mary a shot to kick Pam’s backside – at least through August.
The Yuppie Homesteader 