Free Time to Reflect

Every few weeks I'd get a phone call from DP who sounded like he was living the summer of his life: working construction by day & throwing raging parties every night at his apartment with Elia in Bloomington.  

For me though, the summer of 2003 was the complete opposite.  Outside of babysitting my two cousins a few times & helping my neighbor Borsch's family move to Michigan, I didn't have any other income coming in.  The good news was I didn't have any going out either: I lived with my parents & had no car or insurance to pay for.  

I had a lot of free time, something I wasn't used to after my last semester's workload at Lincoln & I was stir crazy most days.  I would go on long bike rides or hikes & cross off the days on the calendar until I moved to Carbondale for my junior year of college.  

While I did take the time to setup my class schedule, find an apartment off campus & get a job lined up for the fall semester at SIU, I missed having a social life living in rural Brimfield, Illinois.

Looking back, though, it was just the break I needed.  It gave me time to reflect at the young age of twenty & shift forward into business classes at the halfway point of my collegiate career.