I'm cheating. I already had a summer this year...and I was silly enough to think It would be the highlight of my year. Turns out this summer's gonna be a blast.
Prior to either summers, I never had a real summer. The ones people talk about in songs. The ones you see in music videos like the pumpkins' 1979...
I used to think Video Games and having family over constituted a good summer. And the outside world used to scare me. No, I wasn't a complete recluse. I just had other priorities. And of course back then, I had good friends. But I didn't really hang out with them. Saying "hang out" kinda sounds silly right now.
Undergoing a major priority shift, I had zero fun in my final six months of high school. American High School is far different from New Zealand High School in that, everyone's future in New Zealand is determined by the final exams of the final year of high school alone. So I got my head down. I refused to eat anything sweet...or fizzy (and considered Red Bull to be neither sweet nor fizzy...). I played no games. Well, I played one. Got sick of it. Never played again. I never went out (although I never really did prior). Never got drunk (nor will I ever).
When exams were just about finished, my priorities shifted again. I was to leave all my friends I'd ever known less than a month after. So I decided not to get back into my retarded gaming habits and did the "hanging out thing". And it makes me kinda sad, because we had a couple of great 1979 moments (one involving a pumpkin sort of thing, a tall building and a particularly early morning).
Then I lived with my cousins for a bit. Which was a blast. It was my other summer and, being probably the last summer I'd spend with my cousins for a very long time, I had an extra dose of blastnessness. I saw more places in the space of those two months than I'd seen in the past three years.
When I got to America in February, I did get a little side tracked. Not that there was anything to be side tracked from, because I had (and still have) nothing much to do until College starts in September. So I did the gaming thing. Got bored. Did the youtube trawling thing. Got bored. Did the movie thing. Got bored. Did the TV thing. Got Bored. I ended up spending all my time IMing with old friends in New Zealand. Time Difference killed me. I realized the impracticalities...and laid off it.
So then summer came. I didn't expect much. Or nothing. Then all of a sudden I was driving to NJ with a guy named Frank. Seeing Philly. Seeing Atlantic City. Meeting people...actual people. Being outside a majority of the time. Going to New York...twice. Was accosted by mean people. Bought things. Took pictures. Walked.
My life is full of Priority Shifts. And I'm pretty sure I wasted my winter not realizing the need for one. But I'm pretty sure if the opportunity arose now, I'd most definitely know what to do.
I coined my phrase "chillax" awhile ago (and when I say coined, I mean, stole off someone on TV). It does my head in realizing that I could have found out what the word meant sooner.
Meh.
