A nice, steady, deep breath

***for you, Kim, I finally updated my blog :)

Summer makes me feel restless. As a kid, summer was easy. We rode bikes, ate ice cream, played ghost in the graveyard with the neighbors, and caught lightning bugs. Mostly, summer was about mom and dad taking off early from work so we could pack up the car and head to Wisconsin to spend a few days at the lake house. We did this a lot. At the lake, it seemed like the rules were a little more flexible. Life moved a lot slower, and each day was spent out on the boat. We tubed, water skied, swam, took naps in the hammock, ate lots of chips and brats, had all of our meals outside, made a fire (with s'mores, of course) and then woke up and did it all again. That was it. And it was awesome. Later, from the time that I was fifteen, summer meant camp. And camp, well, camp was freedom and adventure to me. I went for a week or two of the summer every year as a kid, but once I turned fifteen and was old enough to be a lifeguard, I would leave as soon as school was out and stay until it began again in September. I'd make the drive up to Mukwonago with my heart ready to just about explode with anticipation for what the summer would hold.

At camp we lived intensely, in the best way possible. When I think back on each of those summers, they are marked by the memories of good friends, crazy adventures, and serving God joyfully and intentionally in any job I was asked to do (really, even the totally unpleasant ones like raking the beach or cleaning the toilets). I'm brought back to vivid and sweet memories of friendships that challenged me to grow in incredible ways and taught me to love selflessly. Camp reminds me of living simply, waking up early, not caring what I looked like, eating my weight in anything and everything sold at the Elegant Farmer, and laughing harder than you'd believe. I think about sneaking out at night for bowls of cocoa puffs, deep conversations or exhilarating midnight skinny dipping. These summers were overflowing, too, with precious quiet times, desperate prayers and lessons in faithful patience. God was huge to me during those summers, and I feel that both the foundation of my faith and of what is important to me in life was laid there.

Mostly, really, what I miss about camp is the intense passion for life that I felt each day I was there. It's hard to explain, but often in my "adult" life I have flashbacks to those moments of summer and grow nostalgic for the way I lived then. What's worse, I know that I am still mostly equipped to live this way right where I am because sometimes I really still do. Frankly, I'm just not as much as I could be, and I've noticed that failing to do so leaves me feeling like something is missing.

I'm aware, I have high expectations for summer. It's unfair to expect that a day spent in the office, even with a trashketball tournament and juicy piece of gossip will compare with a day spent on the lake when you're eleven. Even if the evening hours after work are filled with homemade guacamole and margaritas with awesome friends, and the vacationy lifestyle I know that I get to live in SB, there are still tasks at hand, future plans and fears which accompany the occasional freak-out, not to mention the dishes in the sink or the nagging presence of school. This is just part of growing up, becoming more responsible - "loss of innocence" and all that.

I have a job, a good job, that boring as it is I can't just leave for months at a time to live in a carefree world of summer. I have rent and bills to pay, friends that I miss when I leave town, and graduate school to commit both time and energy to. I don't think that growing up should be synonymous with becoming stressed about life, though. I don't think it should have to mean losing patience on the freeway or running errands all weekend or dashing out the door for work without having eaten breakfast. When those small things take precedence over reading good books, sipping coffee on the porch in the morning, writing in my journal, cooking fabulous meals, taking my kayak out or going for a run, they represent a priority shift that I'm just not okay with.

Sometimes, when I'm stressed out or really cold I notice that all of my muscles all tighten up. You know that feeling? If I stay like that for long enough I almost don't even notice. After a few hours of being out in the snow or running around like a chicken with its head cut off at work I become increasingly aware of the fact that I am absolutely not comfortable or relaxed at all, but have truly forgotten that all of my muscles are totally clenched. My shoulders are up to my ears and tied in knots, and my fists are clenched, toes are curled. I've become at that point, officially, physically stressed. The only thing to do at that point is to do what works. Take a hot shower, or better yet, find a hot tub. Have a glass of wine, go get a massage (or recruit a friend), go to the beach, sit in the woods, or put in a Friends DVD and eat a whole bag of cheddar goldfish in one afternoon. And follow it up with some Ben & Jerry's. Sometimes all it takes is a deep breath, a reality check, and a fresh determination for being more intentional about taking preventive measures.

So to relieve some of my life-stress I bought a plane ticket (or three) and went to visit friends. I went to a beautiful wedding and swam in a lake (amazingly therapeutic for a freshwater Midwestern girl like me who "only" has access to the Pacific). I caught up with friends that I'd spent an amazing Washington summer with and we ate picnics, kayaked, and barbecued. I had plenty of alone time to drink coffee, wander around Portland, browse Powell's, and daydream. Then, in Denver, I got to spend almost five days with Emily, which, let's be honest, is probably enough in and of itself to decompress. But we went rafting in the mountains, and something about that day, being on the river, made it feel like the reset button had officially been pressed. From there on out it was official. I was living in a summer state of mind. There were a lot of thoughts making a big mess up in my brain, but summer has never meant laziness to me in that regard, or emptiness of my mind. There is just something about the longer hours of daylight, the possibility for adventure and excitement, that gives me renewed energy for untying those knots. I'm happy to do whatever it takes to sort out my frustrations, worries, dreams, tasks, everything and putting it in it's rightful place. The good and exciting things, the scary things, the shitty things, they all get put in their place, and I can live in the present and revel in it better, more fully, more passionately. This is the key; the essence of living in and breathing deeply of all of what summer has to offer.

I feel good. I was fine before my trip, too. A little distracted, maybe a little flustered and left-of-center, but otherwise sailing through life in a way that worked. But this is better. I am thankful, my heart is at rest, and I am refreshed. I am also glad that I don't have any weekend plans again for a while. I need to hit the beach, my summer tan has seriously faded in all this busyness and travel and who am I kidding. That's a pretty important part of summer for me too, always has been.