As I yawned and stretched awake this morning it dawned on me that it was August first. July had slipped through my fingers and suddenly summer was feeling a little thin and faded. Sure, the weather is still hot and muggly, but in the early morning the very first hints - as faint and delicate as a gentle breeze - of the coming autumn are starting to be felt.

I remember being a child and dreading the coming forced death-march trips for the dreaded and feared back-to-school shopping. Such a trip holds no fun when the prospect of school is on the line. The days of doing nothing, but spending all day doing it were marked.

When I was a child I remember summers being a lot longer. We must have been out of school for five, maybe 6 months it seemed (it also felt like we must have been in school for fourteen, maybe fifteen months too)! Time was different. Summer lasted forever, stretching out before us with unlimited possibilities, the end never in sight.

Sometime between being a kid and becoming an adult time changed. Now every time I blink another month has ticked by. Every time I turn around a season has come and gone. Years tick by with increasing (and alarming) speed. Just last week it feels I was shoveling snow, yesterday I was cutting grass and tomorrow it feels as if I’ll need to rake leaves.

The worst part is there isn’t any break to just…be. Summer vacation is a long gone memory for me, and now school children are being integrated into “year-round” schools. Americans take so little time off and work more than almost any other country. We are productive, but at what expense?

We’re here on this mortal coil for so little time; why do we spend so much time focused only to look up now and then and marvel at how quickly time has passed us by?

We should remember our child within and strive to recapture that feeling of ultimate freedom and possibility that only a hot summer day with no responsibilities can create!