Summer

Back in grade school, I was never sure why the other kids didn’t like going to summer school. I loved summer school. It was fun. In my mind, what else was I going to do during the summer? Stay at home? That sounded miserable.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t understand completely though. I mean, my friends who didn’t like summer school were the same ones who had Nintendo’s at home or access to a computer. Back in 2006, I had neither. Maybe this was a financial thing. I know of another point to support that too. At home during the summer, I didn’t have air conditioning.

Toronto, one of the largest urban centers of Canada, was known to be cold because that’s what Canada was known for. But in reality, in the summer, it was just as hot as any place. My home was in an old condominium that had central heating but not air conditioning. This made some days feel like hell and some nights very sleepless. My only shelter from the heat was a fan but unforunately, due to Asian rumors of ghosts and spirits, I wasn’t allowed to use that overnight.

I knew at the time that we could’ve afforded an air conditioning. My family was just my mom and I but we weren’t on welfare. My mom was doing relatively well. She just had this principle of trying to spend as little as possible on quality of life. I don’t get that. Being cheap is one thing but sacrificing on quality of life? Why? I can understand not owning a Nintendo or a computer but air conditioning?

I think this is why summer school was so good in my eyes. There was air conditioning there and it beat just being at home doing nothing. Beyond that, I would not really be alone. There were others there with me. Since this time period was before the advent of cell phones and even MSN messenger, being in summer school alleviated my fear of missing out. I wasn’t alone.

I think loneliness in children is something that’s a weird topic to think about. I say this mainly because it’s hard to really imagine how that can be when our current world is so in-tuned to the digital landscape but I often question if the digital is enough to fill that void.

Maybe it can and maybe it can’t. The day my mom bought a TV was a day that I remember fondly. I turned it on and found the old spiderman cartoon, poorly drawn and broadcasted at 3 frames a second or something, to be gloriously captivating. My loneliness wasn’t gone, but I didn’t feel it anymore. It was a good distraction.

Because of this distraction, I didn’t think much more about it. It wasn’t until recently when my wife and I starting thinking more seriously about having kids of our own that I re-examined my past and thought about being lonely as a kid.

I wonder what my future kid would think about their summer. I’m hoping that since they’ll have two parents that at the very least they’d be less lonely.