Boredom, Blues and Bifocals

Summer has always been my least favorite season. I'm sure there are a few gasps out there and you're thinking...how can someone not like the warm summer season. Well, I don't. Never have. I think a lot of it has to do with growing up in a trailer where using any form of air cooler was not allowed. Yes, it is true, we were not even allowed to use fans in our house. Living in a metal box was bad enough but add to that the usual humid weather of West Virginia and the stifling heat without any movement and you have a recipe for disaster. I won't go into the dysfunctional aspects of why we were not allowed to use a fan because that is part of my weekly therapy! Honestly, though, it was horrible. Add to that mowing a yard that was nothing but hills with a push mower and there you have my summers growing up. Grooming our yard growing up was something out of a torture 101 book. Lonnie and I were basically tortured for a complete day - from morning until nightfall. It began with mowing, which was my job, being the oldest. Next came trimming (with hand held trimmers) and raking - Lonnie's job. I love my brother, but back then, he was slower than molasses in January at raking. I know he hated it as much as I did but I'm pretty sure he did it on purpose because neither of us could quit until the whole yard was done. Of course there was inspection time, too. I hated trimming. I would be on my hands and knees for what seemed like hours trimming around every single tree, rock, fence line, porch, etc. All the while, Lonnie would be making hundreds of piles of grass throughout the yard. After he was done raking then he had to use the wheelbarrow to pick up those piles and take them to an area on either end of our huge yard and pile them up in the areas on the hill that we let go wild. Of course there were the occasional times when we would pile the wheelbarrow too high and it would come falling out while we were traversing one of the many hills. I hated this job more than anything else. Let me paint an even brighter picture for you (note the sarcasm). I am of Irish and Scottish descent. I have light hair (blondish/red when I was younger) and am pale. I mean the kind of pale that doesn't tan. I burn, peel and then turn bright white again. There are parts of my body (legs and stomach) that will not tan at all - or even burn much. They literally reflect the sun back! With that information, you can imagine how well I handled the hot, summer sun beating down on me. Not well! Did I mention that even though the rest of me would be mostly white the back of my neck would burn like dry leaves in a forest fire! It was painful. I don't sweat heavily either - never have. I glisten! ha. Really, I do. So, I would get sick. I mean really sick. There would be nausea, dizziness and in some cases fainting. Looking back I'm sure I suffered from heat stroke. Of course having a father who would not let us in the house because he was convinced that I was faking it didn't help. I honestly think he just wanted us away from him. It was awful. Are you getting the picture now?
Well, my summers over the years haven't improved much. I don't hate them as much because as I went out on my own I made sure I found better ways to keep myself cool. I cannot sleep in hot weather. If I'm hot, I will just lay there and swelter. During my days in college I lived in an apartment complex that was supposed to have air conditioning but honestly, it hardly worked. I did have a good friend whose apartment was on the bottom floor and it seemed to be much better down there. I did have some nice summers with my friends out West.
Today, summer has become something of a difficult season. Without fail, the last several years has brought many trials during the summer months. So, there still isn't much of a reason to like summer. I'm always glad when I can begin to see September coming. Even though it is still technically summer through most of September, I consider it Fall/Autumn. I have to - that is how I get through August. September brings my birthday, too.
This brings me to the "blues" part of my title. I turn 44 in a few weeks. I love the number 44. I always have. I remember being four years old and having a sweatshirt with the number 44 on it. I have always liked the number 4 for some reason. It just looks like a nice number, doesn't it? Well, being 44 and liking the number are two completely different things. By this age I expected to have at least one Academy Award on my mantle and a slew of great movies or television shows behind me. I'm not even close. Never have been. My dream was washed out years ago. I guess I'm having a mid-life crisis along with everything else. Joy. Not! You do begin to access your life at certain points and boy do I fail miserably. People often want me to come to reunions or to family get togethers. I think...what for? I have nothing of interest to share in my life. I've done nothing. I really hate my job. I want to find something else really badly but it's a hard time for anyone to find work. I thought this job would be a beginning for me of better things. It hasn't. I think it's just me. See, the blues are not fun. When people sing the blues, they are singing because if they didn't, they would want to kill themselves! Feeling horrible about yourself is one thing but having the blues on top of it is really dangerous. Summer and the blues - what a combination. Hopefully Fall will bring with it some new things. I can only hope. I haven't really gone into great detail here and I won't because, well, to be honest, I don't want to. I've been accused of writing long posts anyway, and this one is already headed that way so I'll just say that I have the blues. For such a nice color, blue is a really awful emotion. I wanted to say something wise and meaningful in this post but my brain fails me. I guess the point is, life has its ups and downs. I'm ready for my ups.
To top it all off, this summer I've begun needing bifocals to read at work! Life is just full of surprises and crap!