Summer vacation syndrome

I like analogies. I love drawing parallels in life. Compare one stage with another. Find something in common in two completely different walks of your own life or others. To see how as we change we still remain the same. Friends say its an annoying habit of drawing analogies between seemingly disparate sources. To try and explain every occurrence I see by comparing it to something totally mundane and unrelated. As if it's a self trained mechanism to automatically explain things to myself that might seem out of the scope of my knowledge base.

One thing I have observed with a lot of friends as they have moved away from home for jobs or studies is the sudden onset of loneliness. The feeling of boredom that apparently never bothered them before. Its even more apparent in those that have moved away temporarily with no friends or family. Its like they are on a summer break from school. Only difference is the time of summer break is too long or short depending on the individual in question. They seem to be bitten by the summer vacation syndrome.

To understand this better, roll back that memory film and pause it during your school days. Summer time was what every one eagerly awaited. But which then started to drag towards the middle and then felt like should never end near the end. No schools. No work. Just relaxation and play. But everyone had a different summer. Some visited their relatives. Some spent days with their friends. Some even attended summer camp. Anything different from the routine of classes. But then sometimes friends traveled when you wanted to play. You got stuck with relatives that annoyed you. Some dreaded that summer camp that they would be attending without friends and no family.

As we grew older the classes became longer and the vacations shorter. We became used to spending time in
the classroom. We enjoyed it actually. So much so that during vacations we missed the countless pointless hours spent with friends. Though you could meet them, it just wasn't the same. Those who genuinely liked work got bored out of their minds. But most generally realised the classroom was the best place to hang out ;). Then vacations just became about catching up on pending things in personal life or catching up with relatives who by now had become less and less frequent equations in your schedule.

Then you go onto work and there are no vacations anymore. Its just work, family and friends. But then some of us get that summer vacation. We get sent away from family and friends. Just like that summer camp when we were kids. Its still the same feeling irrespective of your considerable gain in life experiences, its still something that will benefit you but you would rather stick with friends back home. Its still something that presents new opportunities to learn to grow but which also carries the potential of being friendless and boring.

But our mind by now is hardwired on how to handle summer vacations. We develop hobbies to spend our time. Make new friends. Just like that summer camp when we were kids. We find things to do that we hang onto for rest of our lives. Sometimes we bump into friendships that too last forever long.

But just like summer camps, these phases in life end too. So if you are one of the people who are waiting for it to end it will end sooner than you know. Those who actually flourish in a summer camp situation, well this one is better because it does not need to end like the camps from your childhood.