My son’s school district is nearing its last day of school for the year. In less than one week my son will be done with the third grade and move on to being a fourth grader. And in the middle of that is the thing he loves most of all…
Summer vacation.
Summer break is typically a challenge for me. My son is an only child and, since I’m lucky enough to still be working from home, he relies on me for entertainment (once his allotted video game time is over). In the past that’s meant having to break up my time working on comics into whatever gaps in the day it will fit, sometimes all the way into the evening. It’s a challenge but not an impossible one, but it makes for a tiring summer for me.
But it’s not without its pleasures. There’s a lake beach near us that’s very popular and going there on the weekends is damn-near impossible before it reaches capacity. During the week, however, it’s easier to get in, so my son and I take advantage of my flexible working schedule to score that sweet weekday beach time. I look forward to it every year, even if it’s a strain on my productivity.
This year, my wife signed our son up for a month-long day camp in our town that will keep him occupied for an amount of time comparable to a school day! For one solid month I’ll have my usual time to work on comics and Patreon posts and Kickstarter commissions! I was over the moon with excitement!
Until I realized that, with our son away at camp during the weekdays, we wouldn’t be able to score that sweet weekday beach time together. I’m still excited, but not as much as I probably should be.
And I’m also being a little dramatic. It’s only for a month out of the summer, and we’ll still have beach time at another hidden gem we enjoy that doesn’t fill up on the weekends like the super popular one. Not only do I need the time to myself to work, but my son and I could use the space from one another during the summer. This camp really is for the best.
But even with all that, there’s a large part of me that’s going to miss all those sweet weekday beach times together this year.