After a couple of months of work, my employer has launched a three-year partnership with the self-described "World's Largest Online Retailer", with a second storefront coming in the next few weeks. We all are getting quite an education in the sometimes cut-throat world of selling on the Internet, realizing that by and large it does not follow the conventional wisdom. Some of the lessons have been baffling, such as how a customer might shop for the lowest price but never consider factors like shipping costs or the availability of a lower price at their local stores.
That has been just enough of a distraction to keep my mind off of other thoughts that enter the idle mind. The heat is up into the nineties now with only the occasional relief of rain. The oppressive humidity does not make sleep particularly inviting.
Summer has always been kind of an odd time for me. For three years after finishing high school, I spent it corralling 7 to 14 year olds through their activity periods or on a ropes course at a local summer camp. Many of those same campers are now on Facebook and counselors themselves, giving new meaning to the adage "I am much too young to feel this damn old."
Now I can be found searching for a bit of consistency from summer to summer. Not having a child, much less one of school age, means that the fall/spring dichotomy of the year does not really apply. The only way to tell that summer has arrived is traffic being lighter in front of the three school zones I pass through to get to work. Regardless, I think I will always feel more energized in September than I ever will in mid-June.
I am not involved in my local community. I do not volunteer with a civic or church group. Those facts are weighing unusually heavy this summer, as I believe that too much time is spent sitting still. I would take up a renewed interest in politics, but our mayoral race is not much to talk about. Even if I did, spending four or five hours in a phone bank is not my idea of a worthwhile endeavor.
Samantha and I are frequently talking about how our demographic is woefully under-represented in society: the dual-income, no-kids household. Our friends and acquaintances are all so involved with their own endeavors that none of us ever have the time to even share in quick e-mails. The most horrifying truth to all of it is that it does not really get much better; that we are all meant to drift in and out of acquaintance.
All of us are out there seeking our own definitions of meaning and purpose.