Summer is just too much

Summer is just too much. I am a creature of the Northwest. My preferences tend towards a temperate habitat. Grey is my favorite color and sweating makes me mad.

The Hebrew calendar has it right: the two months at the height of summer, Tammuz (last month) and Av (this month) are all about destruction and excess  and chaos. I used to have a hard time making that connection, but now I get it. The first 18 years of my life taught me that it was a season of adventure, of freedom, of fun. As a teen and emerging adult, summer became synonymous with Camp, and I loveloveloved Jewish summer camp. SO much freedom, to just be myself with people who accepted me for who I was (awkward, silly, and intense), and didn't care about what I wasn't (namely all the things my mother wanted me to be.)

My love of summer continued as I became an educator, and then a rabbinical student, and even as a rabbi (a break from Hebrew school is a mechaya - a life giving force -  for everyone). But now summer just means regular old everything without regular old childcare/school. 

Too. Much. Everything.

I am, admittedly, late to the realization that summer kind of sucks, but it's here now, and it's a lesson I am learning. 

Summertime Sadness is a real thing. (Cue Lana Del Rey). Seasonal Affective Disorder wreaks havoc not only in the winter months, but in this season of the endless sun, too. "About 10% of people with S.A.D. get it in the reverse - the onset of summer triggers their depression symptoms." (WebMD) The heat. The cost. The sheer number of people out and about and getting in each other's way - especially now that we no longer remember how to not-be-assholes on the road... Sure, I posted beautiful vacation pictures on Instagram, and indeed, many of those moments will live in my memory as sweet ones, but ugh.

As my neighbor and I chatted this morning in the full 7:00am sunshine, we fell into this exact commiseration. "This is right about when some folks start counting down to fall," she said. What a grand idea, I thought. (Currently it is 64 days, 7 hours, 25 minutes and 40 seconds).  

My Dr. tweaked my meds, and I'm trying to take things more slowly, and am researching ways to keep my dog from waking me and the child and the downstairs AirBNB guests at ungodly hours. I'm lounging in bed as I type these words, because it just feels right, and a bit transgressive. 

If you're still reading and you love summer, by all means, it is yours. Love it away. Just know that not everyone around you is having such a grand time (and that when you're all bummed out in the Winter, some of us will be happy and hyggelicht in our hovels).