This past Sunday, my husband and I were driving our two kids, 5 and 10 months, home from their grandparents. As I cruised down the highway, music on, windows down, one kid plugged into my iPhone and the other one fast asleep, the sky’s glowing colors consumed my vision. The early June sunlight lightly danced on the pavement and bounced off the windows of passing cars. Scents of neighborhood barbecues wafted through the open windows.
It was 9:30 p.m.
“Why is it so…light out right now?” I asked my half comatose husband in the passenger seat. (A 60 hour work week followed by an uber active summer Saturday with the kids and capped off with a Sunday dinner at my parents’ house had left him a little worse for the wear.)
“Hmph.” He grunted. Clearly, he would be zero help.
I drove on, thinking something must be wrong. And it wasn’t the fact that I’d only had one glass of wine at dinner. Is there some sort of weird summer storm brewing? Have the aliens finally found us—is this the glow from their approaching ship? Did I pick up my mother’s glasses by mistake?
As it turns out, nothing was—or is—wrong. In fact, everything is as it should be. But that does not mean, however that things are necessarily enjoyable.
You see, last Friday, June 21st, marked the first official day of summer. The Summer Solstice. The longest day of the year. No other day this year will rival Friday in terms of longevity and illumination. You get the picture.
But don’t be fooled—summer is just getting started. And summer = good, right? Most of us believe this. But for some, this time of year isn’t lit, in the cultural since of the word. Instead, it’s punctuated by periods of anxiety, insomnia, depression. Even seasonal affective disorder. Yes, seasonal affective disorder in the summer. It’s a thing.
And these sweet souled people now have a title, thanks to Elahe Izadi, pop culture writer for the Washington Post, and it couldn’t be better: Summer Scrooge.
Don’t get me wrong. Usually, I’ll take the hottest day in August over the coldest day in February, hands down. But I totally get the Summer Scrooge thing. I feel you, fellow Scrooges. First, summer comes along with a lot of pressure. All that extra daylight seems to suggest that you can—and should—do more. I like Izadi’s take on it:
If you do love the long days filled with hours and hours of light, the start of summer should spark a more existential crisis. We’ve hit our peak. Friday gave us the most daylight we’ll have all year, and how good was that day, really? Did any of us achieve a career goal? Did we finally finish that to-do list? Did we look up to the sky and mutter a silent prayer of gratitude? Experience internal peace? Weed the garden?
The long summer days tell us this is the best it’ll ever be. Yet even these, the brightest of days, can’t live up to their promise of magic.
As if your to-do list isn’t long enough, the ultra violet, seemingly endless summer days turn up the heat on every line item. A person could melt under all that bright, sun-shiny pressure, even us stalwart Minnesotans. You see, in Minnesota, we spend 75% of the year shoveling snow and waiting for summer. But all that winter makes us a sturdy, hard-working bunch. And we’re so very tired. So by the time we finally reach June 21st, we’re maybe kind of already a little bit over it? At the very least, we need a fucking nap. In the A/C. Because humidity. It’s not our fault. Our climate pre-conditions us to hibernate, no matter the season.
For me, summer can be like that one annoyingly chirpy friend who always wants you to do stuff, “because it’s so nice out!” And I’m like, “Ugh! Shut. Up. Summer. I KNOW it’s 70 degrees and sunny and literally perfect outside and there’s like a million and one things I should be doing. But all I want right now is to sit here in my elastic waist pants, ignore life, watch a true crime story and eat pork rinds.” Let’s face it: here’s nothing worse than wanting to be a pile on the couch when a perfect summer day is glaring at you in the face like a kid who shows up at your bedside at 3:00 a.m.
Which brings me to the second reason why summer can suck it: kids. (It all comes down to kids eventually because of course it does.) Kids are out of school. Which means they’re also out of their regularly scheduled routines. And although they act like rabid vampires during the rest of the year, during the summer months, the phrase, “but the sun is awake” is their motto. So they sleep less. Which means you sleep less. Which means you want to punch something. They are also in constant need of things to do. And as the responsible adult in this scenario, you need to give them the things. Which just adds to the afore mentioned fatigue and desire to punch.
So, yes, the summer is full of hopes and dreams and opportunities and rainbows and little ferry elves and sunshine. That is, if you believe. And if you don’t believe, or you want to ignore the fact that you do for a day or an hour or a week or approximately 92 days, feel free to say, “Fuck that shit.” Also, follow Elahe Izadi. She’ll continue to bring summer’s supposed joys into question with her series of stories on the Post. She’ll remind you that feeling like a Summer Scrooge is not something you need suffer alone. She’s there. I’m there. We’re all there. Like a pack of curmudgeonly friends, the kind that won’t guilt each other into going to the beach.
Because I don’t know about you, but these days, my swimsuit makes me feel like I’m living inside a sausage casing. Maybe I should ease up on the pork rinds. Meh. Fuck that shit.
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