36-year-old Summer Vacation

Can a 36-year-old still have a summer vacation? As a university professor, it’s possible. At 36, you can still take a break from work and enjoy your summer and winter vacations.

So, what’s a 36-year-old’s summer vacation like? In May, when summer vacation just started, my daughter still had to go to school. Every day, I would take her to school, then go to the park for a run, sweat a lot, and then head to the office to watch some Youtube videos and reply to emails. In the afternoons, I would pick up my daughter from school, and at home, I had to take care of our little baby. Fortunately, my in-laws were at home and could help me. One day, I felt that our dog hadn’t exercised in a long time, so I took him to the park and we ran together for an hour. It was very happy.

At the beginning of June, our whole family went on a trip to Disney, and although Orlando was hot and humid, I was still very happy. Traveling is tiring, but being able to leave happy memories makes it all worthwhile. Starting in June, my daughter’s school was on summer break, so my life became all about taking care of my daughter and our baby son at home, helping my in-laws with some of the responsibilities. The weather in Westchester hadn’t gotten too hot yet, and occasionally I could still go to the garden to work. Watching my self-built garden become more beautiful day by day made me very happy.

At the end of June, our whole family went on a trip to Catskill, where we met up with old friends and had a great time. After returning home, I could also swim with my daughter in our backyard pool. It felt like a beautiful life.

However, good times don’t last long. Soon after returning from our trip, my father-in-law and wife got food poisoning and had a high fever. Then I started to catch a cold and cough, and even infected my son. Our dog, who had just been picked up from a friend’s house, suddenly got sick. Now, as I write this diary, the dog is in so much pain that he can’t even go up and down the stairs. We’ve taken him to the hospital twice, but they still can’t diagnose the cause of his illness. Now, at night, in order to make sure the dog doesn’t have to go up and down the stairs and feels accompanied, I have to sleep on the first floor by myself. As I write this diary, I’m accompanying our dog on the first floor - because the sofa on the first floor is uncomfortable for my back, I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t sleep.

It feels like after this trip, our smooth and easy life has suddenly taken a different turn. But I think this is just life, and this is my 36-year-old summer vacation. What’s the difference between a 36-year-old’s summer vacation and those at 30 and 20 years old? I think the biggest difference is that you start to realize you have more responsibilities, and you need to support your whole family by yourself. Whether it’s big things, small things, or daily trivial matters, you have to handle everything. You have more roles to play, and before you were 20, you didn’t have a family, so you only needed to be yourself, and summer vacation life was simple - every day, you only needed to think about your own life, and occasionally you would have some small worries, but overall, it was a carefree life. Starting from your 30-year-old summer vacation, you had some responsibilities (my daughter was born), but at that time, you were still young, your body was still good, and there were many trivial things at home, but you still had a lot of free time. However, at that time, you had already started to feel that the time that belonged to you was becoming less and less. What about a 36-year-old’s summer vacation? The number of family members is increasing (my son was born last year), life is becoming busier, and you have taken on more responsibilities at work. You also feel that you should make further progress in your research, but you can’t find a way. Your family and pets are getting older, our two cats are already 13 years old, and the dog is already 11 years old. I still remember the time when the dog was less than a year old, and I would accompany him on runs and walks every day. So, at this time, if everything is going smoothly, a 36-year-old you might not feel much different from usual, life is busier, but you can still find some free time. However, just like what happened in the past two weeks, you might suddenly need to deal with family members and pets getting sick, which makes you feel very anxious. Especially when it comes to your pets, you suddenly realize that they’re old, and the time you have to accompany them is limited, and once you think about it, you’ll feel sad in your heart.

When will this summer vacation end? This summer vacation has just passed more than half (62%), and there’s still the other half left. In the remaining time, I think I need to be able to face all the difficulties calmly. I hope that my 36-year-old summer vacation will still be a beautiful memory - it can’t be as carefree as my 20-year-old and 30-year-old summer vacations, but it will definitely be mixed with more sweet and bitter experiences. However, isn’t that what life is all about - experiencing all sorts of flavors? So, whether it’s good or bad, happy or painful, as long as it’s an experience that leaves a memory, I think it’s all important, and I should be grateful for being able to experience all these things and have all these memories.

However, writing to this point, I still have a small wish - I hope that the rest of the summer vacation will be smoother, the dog’s illness can be diagnosed and treated, and he can recover as soon as possible. I hope that all my family members can recover. I hope that our family trip to Cancun in two weeks can go as planned and that we can harvest more happy memories.

However, no matter what, as a 36-year-old who has reached adulthood, I will continue to work hard!