Summer. Hot, sticky, humid, sweaty summer. It’s here again (for those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyway), and that means it’s time to talk about how to survive it.
Not conquering it – no, there is no conquering summer. Summer cannot be vanquished, it can only be lived through. Like medical school and dinner at the in-laws, the only way out is through – and the best you can hope for is that your sanity remains intact (or relatively so).
So how do we survive it? We’ve all heard ways to beat the heat (hydration, air conditioning, staying out of the sun); but none of those ensure that you’ll see September with a full deck of cards. So to ensure that all of my dear readers make it through fully (mostly) sane, here are the Bunker Tips for Surviving the Summer:
1. Lower your expectations. We all enter summertime with grand plans: We’ll go swimming several times a week, the kids will be up early and out of the house every day, and we’ll go to concerts in the park every weekend. Then summer comes, and all our expectations are…shifted. The kids get up late every day, we’re lucky if we get to the supermarket (much less the beach) on a regular basis, and the closest they get to a concert in the park is the radio we turn on while they play in the sprinkler. Let’s face it – life is full of unavoidable events. Worrying about all the things you planned to do but didn’t accomplish will only keep you from appreciating those things you actually get to do.
So what do you do? One strategy is to make your goals more general. At the Bunker, our plans for the summer are simple: Make sure the kid gets outside to play as much as possible, relax about stuff like housework and chores, and try to go on a few camping trips. By making our goals general (“as much as possible” and “a few”) and concentrating on doing our best (“try to go on” instead of “go on x number of trips), we can be fairly sure of hitting most of them, and feeling good about the summer we did have instead of the summer we tried to have.
2. Grab the little opportunities. Let’s face it – a lot of our summer expectations are about our kids. We want them to remember summertime as being the awesome experience we remember it was when we were their age. But it’s not the “big” events that kids (or even adults) remember most. For most of us, the best times are when we’re doing something “easy”, such as a game of freeze tag with our friends or an evening spent chasing lightning bugs. So enjoy the “little” moments. Remember, for kids (or even adults!), hunting for tadpoles in the nearby stream or having a picnic in the park can be just as (if not more) fun than a trip across the country.
3. Let it go. It’s up to you – in the end, it’s your decision whether to have an easy, relaxed summer full of little moments to remember, or to stress about all the things not going right with your summer. Being able to let go and just have fun will be the best thing you can do to make sure this summer is fun, both for you and your family.
Have a great summer!
