Summer Doldrums

An email from a friend last night highlighted for me that the doldrums are upon us. She’s away on vacation with her family and let’s just say that she’s missing her own home. I can relate, I guess, although I pretty much would just as soon run away from mine.

There was something about that email which underscored the sort of blah energy I’m dealing with right now. I just got back from Minnesota and now it seems that I’ve lost all my momentum. Except that it would be wrong to blame the vacation and subsequent wooly-headedness (hey, that’s a word!) with which I’m struggling. It seems this happens every summer, vacation or no vacation. Summers simply don’t seem to agree with me.

I don’t know what causes it. But every summer, come mid-July, I just want to roll up in a little ball and engage in some serious navel gazing. Conversely, I always have lots of energy in the winter, when the storms come and the temperatures drop and the days are short.

Is it the heat or the long daylight hours in midsummer that knocks my butt down onto the couch? I don’t know, but whatever it is, the problem is now upon me. This last weekend I saw some bad T.V., floated around in a pool with the kids, and poked half-heartedly at my backyard. I did fix my sprinkler system, which took all of 15 minutes. Other than that, not much got done.

I can’t afford this. I still have much to do to the house, with my job, and for my family. I need to keep working out, else I’ll once again become fat. The backyard has to get picked up, I need to call the painter, the garage needs organizing, the clutter in my office is building, there’s a big pile of laundry waiting for me, the front door has termites, and I’ve got a project at work that refuses to get done. The kids want to go to the pool, to the park, to go and go and go. My wife would like it if I’d remember to clean the kitchen every once in a while. And then there’s all the stuff I WANT to do.

Blah.

The next six weeks are going to be tough for me, I think. The good news is that I got up this morning to discover it was 59 degrees out with that lovely summer fog overcast that hits the bay area from time to time. I went for a bike ride, the first is over a month. It was a short ride, just 22.5 miles. But at least it didn’t hurt.

Very much.

Hey, take your victories where you can find them, right?