Today is Saturday. I do not have class today, and I am off work. To start my morning off I went on Netflix and decided to watch a movie I haven’t watched since December. Love Actually. Typically a movie I only watch during the holidays for some reason I felt a strong urge to once again view this timeless film. Perhaps it’s that this weekend is also a holiday weekend of another sort. Perhaps it’s the whole “Christmas in July” stuff. But I think the most likely reason of all may be that Christmas is simply my favourite time of the year. The two months of November and December are in many ways the reason I live the other ten.
So whatever the reason, the holiday weekend, or Christmas in July, I can’t help but reflect on how fitting it is that I picked a summer day in July to watch a Christmas flick. The older I get the faster and faster the years seem to pass. When I was a kid summer felt like an eternity. The past few years however have felt much shorter. Growing up means being saddled with more and more responsibilities that cause us to to forget what it feels like to truly have a summer break. From summer classes, part time jobs, internships, full time jobs, whatever it is, college kids get their first introduction into the real world, by losing the thing that they once cherished so dearly, summer. It’s not to say that summer is gone completely, but gone are the days when one could simply lay around for 8 weeks straight. Gone are the days when I could wake up at noon, watch tv, and eat cereal all day without feeling any guilt whatsoever.
With each passing year, summer to me goes by faster and faster, with each one becoming more and more driven by work, school, and having more and more responsibilities. Not just the summers though, the entire year seems to follow the same pattern. Each year goes by more quickly than the last. One of the most glaring signs of growing up hit me square in the face this past Christmas. As a kid I was always the first awake in my house on Christmas morning. Full of excitement and anticipation for what awaited me downstairs underneath the tree. Full of adrenaline I would rush down the stairs, only to be awestruck with amazement over what Santa had brought while I was asleep. Fast forward about 12 years and a much different me emerged from my slumber. For the past three Christmases now, instead of being the loud and excited boy up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning, I find myself dragging myself out of bed, stumbling to the shower, and trying to wake up before descending to the kitchen to get a much needed cup of coffee.
The point I am making is that life is short. The years go by in the blink of an eye. It’s already the fourth of July weekend and it feels like only yesterday summer break had just begun. Now it’s half way through. And I know next semester will be here sooner than ever. Then all of the sudden it will time for mid-terms, and then Thanksgiving break. And then before I know it, it will be Christmas Eve and i’ll be sitting in the living room with my family after Church, laughing together and nursing some whiskey, thinking to myself, “what the fuck just happened?”
–M
The Max Blog 