The Wee Hours Of The Morning Post

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho


It's nearly one in the morning as I'm writing this, and I just checked the temperature back at home, and it is NINETY DEGREES. At ONE IN THE MORNING. That's ridiculous.


So now that my week at the beach is nearly over...


Maybe it's the beach itself, and maybe it's the escape from routine, and maybe it's seeing friends we only see twice a year, or maybe it's the friends themselves, but being here always makes all of us far more introspective. We think about the past, we think about the future, and we think about ourselves right here and now. And we talk to each other about it far more than we ever would at home.


It's also...intellectually stimulating for some weird reason.  I'm wondering if perhaps it was the beach that got me started on my blogging kick last summer-- August had a record 36 posts, and the numbers didn't start going down until January.


All of you adult people measure time by chronological year, or maybe by the fiscal one. I measure by the school year (and to some extent the semester), and coming home from the beach really marks the start of the new one-- this year especially, since my sister has color guard camp and I have to finish my summer homework for AP Environmental Science.


I may write my "year in review" posts in January, but the beginning of August is when I feel the new year rather than having it forced upon me by the rest of the world (not that I don't like New Year's-- I do; it just doesn't fit in quite right).


And then there's the more poignant realization this week has brought me...I only have two more years living at home. Oh God. If ever there has been a  future event that is both immensely exciting and thoroughly terrifying, it is that.