Dear Daughter,
I’m not sure they’ve taught you this word yet, but I am envious of you. Do you know what that means? Have you learned it yet in school? It’s when you want what someone else has. When you have this resentful desire to possess it.
“Resentful desire,” daughter. It’s jealousy, more or less. Your papa is brimming with it!
I’m envious of you for one simple reason: Tomorrow I’ll go to work, but you? Well … SUMMER STARTS FOR YOU!!!
No school. You’re done. You can wake up late. Stroll out to breakfast with a big, long, lazy yawn. Hair a mess. Pajamas still on. You don’t have to listen to anyone say, “Kid! … eat, eat, eat! You have 13 seconds to brush your teeth, get that knot the size of a hornet’s nest out of your hair and make it to school.”
Your life is gravy now! GRAVY!!!
You can play with your cereal until the O’s turn to mush. You can flop on the sofa and drown yourself in TV. You can go outside and wash the car for me. (Thought I would throw that in to see if you would fall for it.)
Yet, through all of this — after the yawn, after you pull up to the breakfast table in pajamas, after the O’s turn to mush and you wash the car (still trying!) — do you know what the first words out of your mouth will be?
I do — “I’m bored!”
And the sound of it might just kill your poor father.
Kid, do you know how much I wish I was you?
I remember when I was a kid. I don’t think I wore a shirt the entire summer. My days were spent in water hose fights, attaining sunburns that almost turned my skin to beef jerky and trying to break the land speed record for a bike going down steps. I launched so many fireworks that the military investigated whether an armed insurrection was being launched at 2505 Morrison Ave. I played so many videogames that I will need wrist-replacement surgery next year.
I climbed trees. I went to summer camps. I got stuck on the Florida room roof at least once a day. I got so many mosquito bites that I looked like I had permanent chicken pox. I needed a blood transfusion! And I dutifully washed the car, all on my own accord.
It was probably the greatest time of my life. I see that now. But probably didn’t always realize it then.
So don’t get bored this summer. Enjoy it. Slurp it up. Take advantage of it.
Because one day you’ll be looking back, envious of a little one yourself. Go out and revel in it — every minute of your newly found summer. And remember: The best way to do that is by washing the car. (Gotta’ try!)