“It’s summer!” They said.
“It’ll be fun!” They said.
Well, they were not wrong. Summer is a time to take a break from school, relax, take trips to the beach, and catch up with friends and family. That is all fine and dandy, but what about when your summer becomes just about as stressful as the school year with how much you are working? Summer is not all about fun anymore as we grow up and are trying to really make our way into the adult world. This was my first summer basically working as much as a full time employee. I am barely an adult, at a few months shy of 20 years old, I have decided that “adulting” is hard.
Remember when it was hard to wake up for your 9am class during your freshman year of college? Yeah, rough life. It gets a little easier after waking up before 6am for the majority of your summer. It makes it hard to go out at night with friends when you just want to get ready for bed at 9:30pm. Alas, good news. They invented this wild thing called “naps” and they save lives. Sleeping is a thing of the past it seems. As a young adult, no matter how earlier I get up in the morning, I always fail to go to bed at an appropriate time.
I thought it would be a lot easier to hang out with friends and relax this summer. My friends and I struggled to find time to see each other because we were all working so much. I recall past summers where I had way too much time on my hands and did nothing… Oh, the things I would do to have a little piece of that life again. In general, I feel like I barely relax anymore too. I am always on the go. When I finally sit down for a while, I just end up falling asleep. Nothing makes me feel like an old lady quite like that.
The worst part about summer, and working a copious amount of hours, is that you realize how fast the money goes when you need to make a lot of purchases or pay bills. Every paycheck I got made me feel like I was on top of the world. I got kicked down a lot during that two week period after buying things I do (and didn’t really) need. I paid a few bills every month and definitely bought a lot of necessities like college supplies, a new phone when my old one died, and most importantly… coffee. There is very little in this life that will get me to give up coffee. How else am I supposed to succeed in the adult world?
If you worked your butt off this summer, I understand your frustrations. It has not been that easy, but we made it. We have done a good thing by prepping ourselves for our futures and seeing how to function in this crazy real world. It is nice to know I have a solid work foundation and have an idea of what it is like to work full time. It really makes me appreciate what I have. To the people who work full time all year round, bless your souls. I am not looking forward to that day. But, with any luck and a good cup of coffee, I’ll be just fine.
