The sun is out, the wind is warm, the trees are budding, and there is still a month left in the semester, but I am inconspicuously–and slowly, so subtly slowly–nudging my homework to the side of my desk until it tips over the edge and falls, and I replace it with My 2017 Summer Hopes, Dreams, and Goals.

I feel like an entirely recharged, re-energized, refreshed, reborn person (basically any word that starts with “re-“–EXCEPT THAT ONE; wow that was rude of you) when the weather starts to improve around this time of year. I just have so much more excitement and it’s the birds singing and I can hear the peepers screAMING at night (ahh, nothing so soothing) and the sun’s all shining and the breeze doesn’t make my entire body tense up and the world starts to become green again and the roads are good (except for construction–a necessary evil, like the yin and yang of Ohio roads: snow-buried or construction-laden; there is no alternative), the days get longer, I want to be outside again… It’s enough to completely transform my outlook.

Not that I’m as crotchety in the winter as I used to be, but I’ll just say when 70% of your day is dark, and it’s cold and colorless, then it’s kind of hard to be excited to do anything other than burrow in your bed and cling to warmth of your cat and the light of your phone screen. What’s the point?

But in the summer? The point is that the world is big and abundant and your possibilities stretch sexily before you, and you’re like, “Yeah… I want that. That’s gonna happen.” Camping, kayaking, swimming, hiking, baseball, basketball, tennis, foosball, beer pong, field hockey, competitive underwater basket-weaving (okay I’m gonna stop here and just lump this trend under the umbrella of “sports”), playing in the rain, concerts, campfires, road trips, putt-putt (sorry, “sport”), go-carts, amusement parks, parties, sidewalk chalk art, tanning (although I don’t condone this activity)–yeah. Any of that can happen. All that and so much more.

Plus, for me, summer means a break from homework, and I’m sorry but homework plagues the rest of the year for me. It’s nice to have something to occupy me when all my friends are busy, I guess, but… Yeah, homework just isn’t fun.

So now that things are heating up, I’ve got the windows open, I’m feeling this weather down to my bones… I’m finally able to relax my body for the first time in 7 months because I’ve been so tense and clenched-up from being nonstop cold… That’s right. I’ve been actively cold for 7 months. The goosebumps are finally starting to recede. I might even have scarring left over from having goosebumps for that long of a time period. Who knows.

You can imagine my excitement then. My mind can’t focus on anything because I’m wired–I’m pumped–for all the possibilities that await me. I’m doing my spring cleaning, rearranging my furniture and purging that $3 DVD player which doesn’t work that I got at a garage sale, that plastic gumball necklace I don’t know why I still have, that shirt I haven’t worn in three years (am I SURE I won’t want to wear it again?). I’m envisioning all the parties and get-togethers I want to host at my place once it’s up to par. I’m even gonna ask my dad for pointers (okay, advice; okay, a tutorial; okay, I’m just gonna see if he’ll do it for me) on how to garden so I can make my patio area look nice and occupied even (it currently looks like a wasteland; weird stains on the concrete, no chairs or decorations, dead leaves are STILL gathered around my door–leaves flock to me like I’m a leaf queen, which I kind of am–gathered around my door, like, “You weren’t invited to this party, leaf gang!” and they’re like “Dang that’s a shame because the wind keeps bullying us if we try to go anywhere else” UGH). I’m thinking of all the places I want to travel to (“Yes, I’d like to request the entire summer off of work”), all the concerts I want to see (which are probably sold out or only showing in foreign countries, my luck), all the campfires I want to stare into while accidentally burning my poor swollen marshmallow. I’m thinking of all the cute outfits I’ll finally be able to put to work again, all the friends I’ll finally have time for (“Remember me? I’ve been resurrected”).

And so I’m supposed to be reading a scholarly article on Faulkner and modernism, enthusiastically throwing myself into pages-long paragraphs describing lofty concepts that border on complete gibberish? I’m supposed to be totally invested in that article while the sky is so blue and the air is so comfortable and everything smells so fresh? Uh, yeah right. I’m dreaming hardcore. Getting restless. Ready to freak out.

Okay okay okay I need to calm down. Focus on this article. All right, good, you’ve processed that 1/2-page long sentence, good. Hm, but what if you and your friend Bessie went to an Indians game? That would be so cool!!! No no, control your thoughts; reel it back in. Faulkner… Disillusionment… Okay but–hear me out–you and your boyfriend Bryson go to the ENTIRE WEST COAST. All right, even I can admit that’s a little over-zealous, but a girl can still dream……… Except no she can’t, because she has to read this damn article.

You get the point. I feel like I’m usually pretty spirited, but the sun has got me hype and I’m starting to see those trees bloom which makes me want to jump the gun on summer. Reel it back, girl. Finish the semester off strong: Bullshit that research paper. Skim those chapters. Attend class (but hide in the bathroom when you start to get bored). Speak very vaguely and grandly in class so the professor thinks you know your shit.

Anyway.

Back to Faulkner.