It’s Tuesday of a massive workweek. Last night I lay awake on a pull out couch and stared at the ceiling, reminding myself of the date (August 22nd, 2016). I thought of the days ahead, the tasks to be done, the work I'd be undertaking leading up to another huge work deliverable this summer.

Other friends have floated the river, camped for multiple weekends in a row, spent time at cabins and lakes. Other friends have sat on patios, had summer BBQs, spent the days hiking, biking and surfing.

I have been working every weekend since the end of May, with the exception of the couple weekends we got out to camp. I have seen no friends, ignored my family, worked for upwards to sixty hours a week since May long weekend.

Confession: I love it.

I love the adrenaline, the event weekends, the sports and races that have begun to fill up my portfolio. I love the big weekends, the long days, the intensity of purpose when a whole team comes together to create an event. I love learning about different clients needs, I love bringing in teams, I love the excitement of producing a product, tangible and real. I love dealing with problems, I love seeing things I have never seen before, I love repeating events year over year and doing them better and better and better. I know in a few weeks my travel and events will come to a close and I will come down off the summer high in a massive and spectacular energy crash. This will be the time I will recharge, fill up my cup with family, friends and the hobbies I have ignored. But not now.

When I was a kid my summers were full of football. Dad was working sixty, seventy hour weeks. We went from practices to games to scouting trips, we lived and died by game scores and players and injuries. I'm convinced I had the very best childhood ever, and I never did any of the aforementioned list of "summer activities of normal people". We did sport, we did football. This was my summer. IMG_9496

In my adulthood the irony is not lost on me that I have landed in a career - a career I purposely created - that looks remarkably like the the summers I had as a kid. The summer I can't seem to escape from, and don't want to.