it isn't the same

I don't get what my mom doesn't understand. Our family vacation to Hilton Head isn't the same as it used to be. 


It was different whenever our whole family went down for the full two weeks, but now our numbers have dwindled.

Jarrett, John, and Joey are grown up and can't make it down anymore. Maura, Emily, Aunt Maureen, and Uncle Joe can only stay a week. Uncle Dick has a restaurant down there and other obligations so he isn't around. Yet somehow my mom expects me to want to stay down there just me, her, Jenny, Pap, and Joyce.

It isn't the same as before when the whole family would head down to the beach every morning and spend hours in the sun. Fourteen days isn't so bad when you're among family and you're staying busy the whole time. When Jarrett and Joe were still coming down we would be able to hang out and time seemed to fly by. But they've grown up and moved on and sadly I'm growing up and moving on too.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Hilton Head, it's just that this is my last summer before my life gets shaken up.

It's the last couple weeks before my friends and I go our separate ways. In 28 days one of my best friends will be gone, in 47 days another will be gone, and in 53 I'll be gone.

Maybe years from now looking back I'll ask why I didn't take advantage of the vacation time I had. Maybe...

Right now I want to see my friends.

I love my family more than my friends, it's just the idea that I know where to find my family. In a year's time I'm not sure where I'll be able to find my friends. 

Three hundred sixty-five days from now I'll have finished my first year at college. My friends might be at home working summer jobs, they might be taking advantage of internships, or maybe they're off chasing their dreams playing semi-professional soccer.

Life is full of maybes, the future especially, all I know for certain is that I want to live up these last couple weeks with my friends. 

Times are changing.

Do you feel it yet?

NP: Different Now- Oddisee