It’s A Cruel Summer

It was apropos for the summer of 2020 to hear Bananarama crooning the song “It’s a Cruel Summer” in their lilting British accents as I pulled away from the beach. I had just dropped my kids off for two weeks of beach camp. Excitement the night before gave way to nervousness as I pulled to the drop-off. I stole a glance at my two masked kids in the backseat, anticipating their first day. Several counselors rushed the car with touchless thermometers though I’d never met them nor had my kids. Within minutes, the kids were whisked away with their cohort groups.

As I pulled away, I felt like crying. On the one hand, I was excited for them. They could finally socialize with kids their own ages and simply get out of the house. On the other, it wasn’t business as usual. We’ve been living in a pandemic long enough to know the rules. Wash your hands, hand sanitize when soap and water aren’t available, and wear your mask unless you can maintain distance from your cohort friends.

I am grateful they have anything to do, but I can’t help but think of my own childhood, when the Bananarama song meant something else to me. I worried about such different things when I was my kids’ ages, but in retrospect, all of them were trivial. The concept of “new normal” just keeps evolving. Now we can add summer camp to the list.