There is surely one question on the mind of every student in
the Western Hemisphere; where, exactly, did the summer go? I had it better than
most, and in fact it is only now that I realise I have had around three and a
half months in summer holidays. And yet now, time is up, and a new term, and a
new, final year at university, beckons. Why is it that holidays seem to
disappear like that? I actually wish I could have had breaks this long when I
was a kid; I would have had a lot more use for it back then. Most people my age are entering a very
exciting month. For some, it is a new year at university. Some are only just
entering university, ready to kick off their first year. Others are starting
jobs, leaving home, or otherwise, feeling the heat of summer ebbing away, and
the chill of the autumn, slowly taking its place. While it is a very exciting
time, it is also a sad time, a time for me, at least, to reflect.
The past few months have gone by so quickly it has left me
feeling a little uneasy on my feet. Like standing in one place, and feeling the
earth move beneath you. The summer has seen some drastic changes, some funny,
some anything but. One of the most
important things I have come to understand, something that is important for
anyone I suppose, is that life isn’t long. Okay, I know, at the ripe age of 20
I probably sound a bit whiney saying that, since it is essentially the premise
of every Panic! At The Disco song
ever written. But when three and a half
months vanishes into a scattershot of memories, in the blink of an eye, what
else can you deduce? That, perhaps when you are retired and grey (after taking out your dentures and emptying
the commode) that you may feel the same way about your entire life?
Frightening stuff
indeed. No one wants to think it is true
what your gram-gram says, that life will ‘just fly by’, because who wants that?
And, truthfully, I don’t think that is necessarily the case. Rather than some
dark harbinger of the fleeting nature of life (For further reference, listen to
anything the band Evanescence has
ever written), the habit of time ‘flying by’, is more just a good reason to
grab every single day by the scruff of the neck. And so, you change one clichéd
phrase, with an even more clichéd phrase. But overwrought or not, the
time-tested sentiment that every day is sacred, certainly holds water. How many
times have you gotten up at noon, only to doss around all day watching endless
retreads of Two And A Half Men? It is
virtually a pandemic. This thought dawned on me on a sunny Thursday morning in
July. I woke up at 1:00PM. My bed was festooned in a medley of random shit,
some music magazines, Tesco bags, a table tennis paddle and, bizarrely, a small
frying pan. This varied selection of junk had sort of moulded around the shape
of my body as I slept. My room was a tip, and it hummed of the unsavoury smells
my body permeates during REM sleep. It was at this point, as I came to, rubbing
away that vile gritty-griminess you get when you oversleep, that I realised; I needed
to stop doing this. One image came into my head, in that moment of dank sweaty
semi-consciousness. I recalled a music video by little-known electro pioneers,
UNKLE.
The song was called Burn My Shadow,
and the video depicts a man who, awakening in an analogous state (I.E Bathed in sweat, and still in bed in the late
afternoon) discovers he has an LED display on his heart, displaying how long he
has to live, down to the very second. It
was probably one of the more provoking things I had ever seen, and it really
struck a chord in me as I sat there, in semi-darkness, in a puddle of my own
sweat juices. How different would you
live your life, if you were perpetually aware of how long you had left to live?
Would you ever waste time again? Probably not; certainly no more late afternoon
rises, and, to boot, the viewing figures for Bargain Hunt would drop considerably. It is an interesting idea,
since, effectively, you do have a
little clock ticking away, only it is invisible, so you never know what it
says. Of course, this would certainly not be an improvement on being blissfully unaware of your doom. If you had a similar
Death-Alarm on your chest, your life would be perpetually hilarious to everyone
else. You would probably forego washing and shaving; apparently obsolete in the
face of approaching death, resulting in a quasi-Tom Hanks from Castaway-rapist physique. You would sit
through dates glancing at you watch, and irritably asking ‘Are we going to develop an intimate and memorable relationship or
should I just go?’ as your date fiddled awkwardly with their fork and asked
what you did for a living and how many pets you have. Whenever you needed to
poop you would grumble and sit on the loo, drumming your fingers on your knee
as you watched valuable seconds shaved off your lifetime as you waited for the
deed to be done. And you would probably make a right hash of wiping to boot.
Still, even if it is not a preferable way to live, it is an interesting
metaphor. And it lead me to strive to try and do more, or, at least to try to
do the same things, but more often.
And so I made an effort. I reeled in friendships I had
allowed through my own inaction to begin to trail into obscurity. I read
everything I could get my hands on, from Murakami to Steinbeck. I watched a
bunch of films I had meant to watch for ages. I wrote on this blog, regularly
(Developing a committed fan base of, approximately, 0 people). I remembered how
much I loved cycling. I developed a new-found love of roller coasters, even after
spending my early adolescence being perpetually terrified of them. Indeed,
before my two trips to Thorpe Park, my only experience had been at Euro Disney,
where I tried Pirates of The Caribbean,
got scared shitless, and retreated to the revolving teacups for the rest of the
day. I turned 20. I had a bit to drink with some friends, I swam in the sea,
and enjoyed the sun. And then, almost all at once, September was here, and the summer
had gone.
Of course, despite its crippling overuse, the phrase ‘live
every day like it is your last’, is a daft thing to say, and does not lend
itself to the realities of day-to-day life. You need ‘off’ days, I.E, days
spent in your pyjamas watching re-runs of Will
and Grace on Sky Living, to properly enjoy the days you spend actually
doing things like larking at the beach with mates or riding Nemesis Inferno. You need a balance
between advancing and staying put in your life. You need action, and then reaction, and through
this, you learn. And it is this, more than anything I think, that a young
person should do over a summer holiday. And, as a new, final year at university
draws into view, and a sense of nostalgia becomes almost overbearing, I feel,
that I have learned. That memories good and bad, will bring a tear, that
pictures can never be the same as being there, that words are poor substitute
for feelings, that the only true happiness you can claim in life comes from
other people. And that some people, left unchecked, will destroy anything to
hide a truth.
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