Why you grieve the end of summer before it’s even over

If you’re already stressed about the end of the season, you’re not alone.

The days are already getting shorter. The start of the school year is inching closer. You haven’t even had time to make a bucket list yet, let alone check things off. Though the summer has just officially begun, you may be prematurely mourning its departure.

For people who live in a climate where warm weather only makes itself known a few months a year, summer means late sunsets, leisure, and outdoor recreation. Maybe even a vacation. Knowing how few blissful moments you actually have may inspire an ironic anticipatory anxiety: suddenly, you’re dreading winter while sitting at the beach.

If summer is particularly meaningful to you or you have a tendency to downplay positive moments in order to stave off future disappointment, you might be more inclined to mourn summer’s decline. But you can savor the season — and beyond — by keeping your calendar populated with events.

All of the hallmarks we’ve come to associate with summer — no school, a slowdown at work, family trips — are relatively modern. Prior to the 19th century, kids attended school during most of the summer and only the wealthy took vacations during the warmer months. While labor unions fought for shorter work hours during the early 1900s, they largely ignored the issue of paid vacation time, Cindy S. Aron writes in Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States. However, by 1930, many industrial workers were offered paid vacations by their employers. In the years following World War II, even more Americans had vacation time and were hungry for summer travel. Now hordes of Americans flock to beaches, lakes, national parks, and public pools, send kids to camp, and road-trip........

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