It’s the middle of the summer. July has come. The Fourth was great, the fireworks have finally died down, and lightning bugs are still slowly drifting across the lawn. A cool breeze ruffles tiny fluffs of cotton off the cotton trees and somewhere a happy deer is munching on some berries with her babies. All is well.

Except everything isn’t well. Work has consumed your life. When you’re not working, you’re sleeping. Maybe you play a video game every now and again, or maybe you read a few pages from a book. You might even shock your parents and crawl out of your room for food every couple days. All of this is in between spending a day or two with some old friends. What happened when school ended?

Once the bliss of summer break wears down you’re left with nothing but free time spread out before you. I for one told myself I was going to do all kinds of things this summer, and I still haven’t managed to accomplish more than maybe three items on my bucket list. And yet I spend all hours of the night searching Pinterest for more dumb crafts to do. I’m a Pinterest zombie. My mind is just a continuous stream of DIY crafts and recipes I’m most likely never going to try.

I’ve dubbed this problem Missing School Syndrome. I miss my friends and my roomies. I miss being on campus all the time and seeing the same people. I miss living with some of the greatest people I know. Seeing the same people in line at my schools coffee shop every day. I even miss tripping on the same broken piece of concrete that’s right in front of my dorm building.

I even miss doing homework! I miss studying and learning! My 14-year-old self would cry if she knew that I missed going to class. After escaping the tar pit of high school, missing class and homework seems absurd. But here I am, missing my professors and wishing I had some reading assigned to me or something, because reading for pleasure surely isn’t going to cut it.

Maybe it’s the routine. You get up, you go to class, you sit in the same places in between class, and you see the same people. You pass the same lonely bench every day. You know when you’ll have free time and you know your options for said free time. The coffee you get every morning makes you smile.

I’m sure in about two months when school is in full swing again I’ll look back on this and cry myself to sleep, but for now I miss it. Right now school can’t come soon enough. I never thought I’d get so attached to a school. It’s weird how your university really becomes your home.

So I’m just going to have to sit here and wait for the end of August to come while I’m sitting here missing school. And when winter arrives, I’ll write an article called Missing Summer Syndrome.