are we there yet?

This is the time of year that makes me yearn for the days of my youth...anticipating the best trip ever. A busy week full of lounging, laying out, swimming (or at least pretending the water was warm enough to swim), sleeping late, and sunburned shoulders. The days when nothing mattered but whether your bathing suit was dry from the last swim so that you didn't freeze to death trying to wiggle, twist, and shimmy into it. Now that I'm older and realize that not everyone gets a break during Spring...I've been thinking...if we are expected to "spring forward" year after year, essentially "losing" an hour of sleep...then, why can't we indeed take a "real world" respite? I think we deserve it. But then I'm reminded by the husband that I would have no complaints about "losing" that hour if I were to travel east to, say...New York, Boston, Martha's Vineyard, Maine, or the Hampton's any other time of year. So, why is it that we Southerners talk about "springing forward" like we're preparing for an epic event? And suddenly, I realize now that Spring punctuates our youth with a "break"...and greets us adults with change and responsibility...not unlike most other seasons. And so, until the toddler is begging for the rite of passage Spring Break holds, I suppose I'll hold on a little tighter to her knowing that "passage" will eventually be punctuated with...change. image credit: Getty images