Bone Idle or Aching Bones - What Have You Done This Summer to Make You Feel Proud?

From a distance, this summer promised a lot: free time to do nothing or everything with, being 18 for the first summer ever and all of the other things little that we all dreamed of doing that just wasn't possible with the meagre 7 weeks we've had in the past for the summer holidays. So where did is all go then? In under a month's time I'll have left home and a new chapter in my life that always seemed so far away will begin. In even less time than that, friends will have moved away, destined to only be in contact via Facebook and email until Christmas at the earliest. For the first few weeks of the summer I thought I was in paradise as did many of you but now the preparation for university is pretty much a necessity and we'll now have to cram all of those dreams we had for this summer into a few weeks (if that's even possible). My question to you is this: what have you managed to do this summer that you can pat yourself on the back for and say "that was worth it"? Of course I am only able to speak for myself, but from what I can see there are many other people in the same boat as me thinking "damn where did the summer just go?". 

If this had been a normal year during high school, then I would be going back there tomorrow to start it all again with the same faces and the familiar places. It was this realisation that started to make me think about just what I have done with my summer. The biggest thing that I did was visit Rome as some of you might be aware. It's hard to say if going on holiday can be seen as being constructive but I'll say it is for the moment. I've had my most productive summer in terms of reading with almost 10 books biting the dust along the way. On a slightly less constructive note, I have watched loads of films that I haven't seen before that everyone else seems to have watched. That could possibly be viewed as a good thing - maybe. Other than that it has been a summer of occasional exercise, more than occasional alcohol abuse and a fair bit of what I'm doing just now. Maybe I should have looked harder for a job earlier in the year but I think that I have managed, in theory, to find plenty of things to fill the summer weeks with. In practise however, it's been far from a full and rewarding few months.

It's been a hard summer mentally as well for me. In fact this year has been pretty difficult more or less because of the complete lack of motivation I've had for everything. It took a massive effort to even think about doing revision for the exams and frankly the results I got for them are nothing short of a miracle. There has been a lot of those 'it's really not worth it' days this summer which sounds very depressing but it's just the way that I've felt for quite a lot of the summer a I'm sure many others have as well. I think you'll know the sort of days that I'm talking about: when you've got nothing to do; there's nothing on TV and nothing good recorded on your sky+ box; nobody seems to be doing anything outside; you can't bring yourself to lift a book or go for a run and so you melt into a state of depression that just takes you right down. I've noticed that the times that I am happy I have generally done something with my day for example: finish a book; do some exercise; write something etc. And it's no coincidence either. I have just described polar opposite types of days that I have been having this summer and the pattern is blatant. So as I've said before: despite the fact that my writing sometimes makes me sounds depressed (or just makes me sound like I'm over reacting to everything) I am a very happy person and I realise that it's important to keep active.

Now that the summer has run away from us, it's time to start thinking about what's next - university, college etc. The prospect of going to university has been another of those things that I've thought about and felt miserable because of the idea of having to start working again and all of the other things that go with this massive change. Those feelings towards the matter have only cropped up a couple of times this summer because the rest of the time I've been bursting to get started. Yes it's a scary thing but I truly can't wait to get started. So much so in fact, that my plan for next week is to do some reading and some notes from the books that I have got on Scots Law. If I was to put my excitement about the course into words then I would fail miserably because I just wouldn't be able to do it justice (pardon the pun).

So again I ask you: what have you done this summer to make you feel proud? It seems that now I have written everything down, I have actually done quite a good deal more than I realised. Maybe your summer hasn't been as productive and proactive as it could have been but to take another lyric from the song that gave me the title to this post: it's never too late to try - three weeks can be as long or as short as you make it.

Stay happy people and thanks for reading,

Martin