the calendar that stole summer

how we lost the art of slow summer time

Sep 02, 2025

Dear Unlearners,

Today is already September 2nd. I mentioned to a friend last night that Paris already looks like fall. There were so many dried leaves on the sidewalk even two weeks ago.

It feels like summer just started yesterday. We only have 20 days left before summer officially ends.

When I was 12, the last day of school felt like being released from prison. Summer felt infinite, like it would never end. Now summer starts and ends before I remember to buy sunscreen.

I spent my childhood wishing I could fast-forward to being an adult so I could have control over my time. Turns out, having control over your time means having no time at all.

when three months last forever

As a kid, summer felt like stepping into a different world. When school ended in June, I became someone else entirely. Summer me could stay up late, sleep in, and spend whole days doing absolutely nothing. Time moved so slowly it almost stood still. Then Labor Day weekend hit and I'd have to go back to being regular me again.

But here's what I didn't understand then.

Time only moves slowly when you're not watching the clock.

Kids don't measure days in hours. They measure them in experiences. How many times can I go down the slide? How long until lunch? How many more episodes before bed? Time was elastic, stretching to fit whatever was happening.

Adults measure time in increments. Meeting at 2. Deadline Friday. Vacation days left. Bill due Tuesday. We chopped our lives into pieces so small that summer becomes just another series of weekends interrupted by work.

the end of endless days

Remember having nothing to do and being perfectly happy about it? Remember lying in the grass staring at clouds for hours? Remember spending an entire afternoon reorganizing your room for fun?

Summer days used to be wide open spaces you could fill however you wanted. No schedule. No agenda. No productivity goals. Just time existing for its own sake.

But here's what happened when we grew up.

We forgot how to be bored.

Now if we have three hours with nothing planned, we panic. We check emails, scroll phones, find tasks to fill the void. We turned empty time from a gift into a threat.

Kids are comfortable with unstructured time because they haven't learned to feel guilty about it yet. They don't worry about wasting time because they don't know time can be wasted. Every moment just is what it is.

when every summer was different

Fourth grade summer was the pool summer. Seventh grade was the reading summer. Ninth grade was the first job summer. Each one had its own personality, its own defining moments, its own version of you.

Every summer felt like starting a new chapter. New camps, new friends, new skills to learn. You approached June with genuine excitement about what might happen in the next three months.

But here's what adult summers become.

The same vacation repeated.

Same beach town. Same restaurant. Same conversations about work while pretending to relax. We found something that worked once and decided to copy-paste it forever.

Kids treat every summer like an experiment. As an adult, summer becomes a routine: book the same vacation, pack the sunscreen, check the box, do it all again next year.

The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.” ― Milan Kundera

the death of summer anticipation

As a kid, summer anticipation started in March. You'd count down the days on classroom calendars. You'd make lists of everything you wanted to do. You'd dream about sleeping in and having adventures and being free.

The anticipation was almost better than summer itself. Almost.

But here's what kills anticipation as an adult.

Experience teaches you what to expect.

You know exactly what your summer will look like because it'll look like last summer. Same job with different weather. Same responsibilities with more daylight. Same life wearing shorts instead of sweaters.

Kids anticipate summer because they have no idea what's coming. Adults don't anticipate summer because we know exactly what's coming.

living in fast-forward mode

Kids experience summer in slow motion. Every day has enough moments to fill a memory book. The texture of grass. The taste of ice cream. The sound of the ice cream truck. The feeling of sun on skin.

They're present for all of it because they don't have anywhere else to be mentally. No bills to worry about. No meetings to plan. No future to stress about. Just right now, and right now is pretty good.

But here's how adults experience summer.

In the rearview mirror.

We're so busy managing our lives that we miss living them. Summer happens around us while we're responding to emails and scheduling appointments and thinking about fall projects.

By the time we notice summer, it's Labor Day and we're wondering where it went.

the productivity prison

Somewhere along the way, we decided that time had to be useful. Downtime became something to optimize. Relaxation became something to schedule. Fun became something to earn.

Kids don't have productivity anxiety. They can spend four hours building a fort out of couch cushions and feel completely satisfied with their day. They understand that playing is working when you're a kid.

But here's what we lost when we grew up.

The ability to exist without purpose.

Adult summer is about maximizing limited vacation days and finding the perfect work-life balance and making the most of good weather. We turned summer into another project to manage instead of a season to experience.

When you're 10, three months is 2.5% of your entire life experience. When you're 35, three months is 0.7% of your life experience. Mathematically, summer gets smaller every year you're alive.

But it's not just math. It's that adult life operates on a different calendar. Kids measure life in school years. Everything resets in September. Adults measure life in fiscal quarters, tax years, and mortgage payments that never reset.

Here's what really changes.

Summer stops being special.

For kids, summer is the opposite of the school year. It's freedom versus structure, play versus work, adventure versus routine. The contrast makes it magical.

For adults, summer is just regular life with better weather. Same job, same house, same problems - just sweatier.

when summer became a memory

The cruelest part is that we spend adult summers trying to recreate childhood summers instead of creating new ones. We chase the feeling we remember instead of being present for the feeling we're having.

We take photos to capture moments instead of experiencing them. We plan activities to feel spontaneous. We work harder to afford vacations that are supposed to help us relax.

But here's what we're really chasing.

The person we used to be in summer.

That kid who had nowhere to be and nothing to prove and all the time in the world.

That version of us who could be happy with a garden hose and a pack of sidewalk chalk.

the summer that never end

Maybe the problem isn't that summer hits different when you're young. Maybe the problem is that we stopped being young in summer.

We let adult brains take over kid experiences. We brought calendars to beach days and productivity guilt to hammock afternoons.

But here's what's still true.

Summer is still summer.

The days are still long. The weather is still warm. Ice cream still tastes good. Pools still feel amazing. Fireflies still light up the dark.

The only thing that changed is that we stopped paying attention.

Maybe this August, instead of wondering where summer went, we could try being where summer is. Not planning the next thing or missing the last thing, but right here in the thick, slow, honey-sweet middle of it.

Maybe we could remember that the point of summer was never to be productive.

It was just to be.

Until next time,

Cammi

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