This was the first year in my entire life without a true "summer vacation."
Cue the "Grease" soundtrack. Summer is supposed to be those fun-in-the-sun days of endless possibilities, where dreams are made - or at least had thanks to more sleep - and no responsibilities.
As the daughter of a college professor and a high school teacher, I grew up in a world where everyone got to enjoy those carefree days of summer off of work and school.
My parents didn't send me off to stay with grandma and grandpa or even daycare or camp - unless I wanted to go. They kept me at home in favor of family time, whether that included taking a weeklong vacation, visiting family in other states or just playing games around the house.
So I didn't realize what it would be like to work 50 weeks out of the year.
As I watched all my friends return to their homes and families in separate states and heard about how they were spending their days doing nothing but reading and watching television, I couldn't help but feel the ugly green monster sitting on my back this year.
I wanted to go home (to my other home). I wanted to travel around the country. And in true American spirit, I wanted to get paid for doing nothing!
It wasn't the first time I had felt this way. For the past year, I have spent all the major holidays, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, in Greenwood.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy living in Greenwood, and I always have somewhere to go for the holidays, thanks to the wonderful people in this community. I'm also glad to have a job, but I would bet there are few people in this world who would rather be at work than on vacation. And I am no exception.
As I planned this week's Lifestyles story, "Summer is no vacation," I had some time to reflect on my own non-traditional summer activities, or so I thought. In retrospect, it wasn't so bad having to work.
Despite my limited vacation days, I still went on a true family vacation to New York City and Boston, complete with car singing and sightseeing with my parents. And because mom and dad get so much time off in the summer, they even took a trip to Mississippi to hang out with me for a week.
I also had the opportunity to visit friends from college during both my family vacation and weekend trips away from Greenwood.
Although I wasn't able to go "home" or get paid while sitting on my couch - a dream realized by few, the long days of sunshine in Greenwood and the summer activities had me in more of a vacation-ish mood than I anticipated.
I was surprised to learn if I was responding to the prompt "How I spent my summer vacation," as I have done so many times before, I would still get to say many of the same things I always have.
•Contact Andrea Hall at ahall@gwcommonwealth.com.
