I suppose I should blog but I'm losing my taste for this mode of expression.

I can't deny it any longer. Summer is ending. One by one all of my friends from home are departing for school, our group dispersing to our separate lives spread out along the eastern seaboard. It seems that this week, more than any other week during the year, makes it blazingly obvious that this is growing up. Yes, I've written about buying kitchen appliances and toilet cleaner for my apartment as tangible evidence of Growing Up. But this week of farewells is more poignant.

All summer long my friends and I have been busy pretending to be kids again. We've been runing around town, getting into trouble, looking for adventures, wreaking havoc. We had these three months of freedom and we just wanted to pretend to be kids one last time before Growing Up becomes so apparent that we can't ignore it any longer. Now summer is ending and I won't go so far as to say I feel as though an era is ending or my childhood is ending. Growing up doesn't work like that. It doesn't just end after one summer of craziness.

Still. As this summer comes to its close, as everyone leaves for school, Growing Up seems more real than ever. I can't help but look back on our antics this summer, even our antics of the past two nights, and marvel at how desperate we all were to grasp every ounce of fun we could get our hands on. It's as if we knew that every summer from now on would be a little bleaker as one by one we all go off on our separate paths. The group will be dwindling, each break from school when we return home to Baltimore a few more of us will have gone off to Real Life in Adult World. Right now we're all straddling the divide between this College Kid Life and Real Life but we're all just waiting to be pushed over the edge.  Some of us will be leaving soon, only able to visit the Kid Life fleetingly.

So this week, as I've said goodbye once again to all of my friends, I can't help but think that next summer won't be the same. But that's how it goes. That's Growing Up. It's a slow process. You don't want to think about it too much, though. You just want to live and experience this time, aware that Growing Up is advancing slowly with every passing moment but not consumed with the fact.

This time next week I will be back at school. But first I have to pack. And I hate packing.