We’re almost there, everybody. The clock is ticking slowly, but we’re all gonna make it.
Just mere days separate us from the glories of summer vacation and all of the fun stuff we can plan–oh, wait? I’m not in school anymore?
Huh. That’s news to me.
In my short life on this planet, the month of May has always represented “the end” of something, usually a school year. May would be the time to say my cheery goodbyes to my classmates, with hopes and expectations of seeing them again in the fall, refreshed from the drudgery of Algebra II and trying to figure out how to use Naviance (said with the creaky intonation of my high school guidance counselor).
Summer vacations were also a rare time for me to visit my family in Colombia, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t fully appreciate my travels growing up. Partly because my mom always flew with me, and her anxieties never left the concourse; She always grew skittish over our boarding passes and passports and luggage claims and customs and saying things like this is all your fault, Andrea, you need to pay more attention– before she realizes that her credit card was in her purse all along and no, nobody “stole” her Dasani water bottle filled with green tea during the security screening; she just put it in my knapsack and forgot about it. Sigh. If there’s anything teenage girls hate with a passion, it’s fussy moms.
Fast forward to today, and I am gainfully employed, writing weekly ‘Editor’s Corner’ columns with the backdrop of inclement weather causing havoc outside my office, signaling the early onset of hurricane season. (My train of thought has just been interrupted by my co-worker who has kindly informed me that sometimes the power goes out in the office during rainstorms, so I should probably save my work to be saf–sjwsusjsywbsydeydhawfneeusmsiswefyhgtbs).
One of the things that helps me keep track of time nowadays is sport. More specifically, soccer (or ‘football’ to our beans and toast-eating friends). Real Madrid, objectively the best soccer team of all time, have just made it to yet another UEFA Champions League final.
They’re up against plucky challengers Borussia Dortmund (any team up against Los Merengues are always the underdog, no offense) and the two teams will face off at London’s Wembley Stadium on June 1. With my luck, some unprecedented weather event will adversely affect my antenna service and streaming. (The Champions League final usually is free-to-air on CBS, last I checked).
Your esteemed editor will be watching with a bowl of chips at hand–Lay’s Barbeque no less– cognizant of the fact that Dortmund are the fan favorite, the German team having last made it to the final ten years ago held at the very same Wembley but left the losing side against Arjen Robben and co. from Bayern Munich. But alas, I am just willing for a Jude Bellingham or Vinicius Junior late winner to secure Real Madrid’s fifteenth Champions League title, a record for any club. Call me a glory hunter, I don’t care.
I’d rather be that than support some team that never wins anything cool, like Tottenham.
We also have the Olympics coming up in Paris in late July, when the heat and humidity is clamping down on the Southeast the hardest, so the Games will serve as a perfect form of escapism for me; I get to watch some random sport like synchronized swimming or cycling while imaging how much better and more fun my life would be if I lived in the City of Light.
[Reality: it wouldn’t be too different from my life today–eating croissants and reading books in public. Although I may pick up an unseemly smoking habit in a misguided effort to look chic (bad!) or make friends with a rat who helps me become a better chef (good!)] Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, the passage of time. As one grows older, typical kid stuff like school exams and summer vacations cease to exist, which makes it hard to keep track of time. Unless you have kids yourself, of course, then you just have to relive all that stuff as a parent, which is just crazy. Thank goodness for moms and dads. (Upon further reflection, maybe my mom was just trying her best at the airport all those years…traveling must be hard with a teenager with a book stuck in her nose everywhere and wired earbuds that never seem to detach from her eardrums.)
Andrea Gutierrez is the editor of the Bryan County News.