As we approach the solstice I am struck by how unbalanced it is to have all this extra daylight. Having traveled to the tropics I have learned to appreciate the balanced life that can be experienced when the day is 12 hours of sunlight followed by 12 hours of night.
There is a constant rhythm of life that doesn’t suddenly get turned upside down by longer days or never ending nights. You don’t feel compelled to get one more thing done, to work just a little longer, to extend your energy over a few more hours as the day and night shift for the summer. Sometimes summer exhausts me with the expectation, real or otherwise, that with the additional hours of daylight I should somehow be more productive. I can be constantly disappointing myself as I reach the end of the day and collapse knowing there was more to be done.
Somehow I need to go into these long days with their late sunsets and early sunrises and not burn out. Instead maybe this year I can let myself use these extra hours of daylight to sit a little longer by my pool or walk a little longer on a trail or talk a bit with an old friend. Time is relative, there really isn’t any more just because it’s summer. But maybe I can use it a little more wisely.