Reality Is Setting In: Summer Is Slip-Sliding Away ... In A Hurry

LARCHMONT, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- There are just three more summer weekends left before school starts. So have you banged out everything on your summer "to-do" list?

The sun is still high in the sky, the clouds float by, the water is warm, but something's bugging us.  Young and old we feel like summer is slipping away.

"I feel like I just ended school and I'm going back in a week," Upper Saddle River, N.J. resident Bari Silvershein told CBS 2's Lou Young.

"I don't know what it was but it, I don't know, everything went so fast," Pearl River, N.Y.'s Stan Gedney added.

We all had such big plans when the season was young, didn't we? But for some reason we waited.

"I really just wanted to go to the beach. Last year I went to the beach. This year I didn't get to go. Not one day," said Rachel Traylor of Old Greenwich, Conn.

"[We] weren't able go on vacation. It just went too fast," added Erin Egan of Hartsdale, N.Y.

Psychologists told Young it's not an illusion. Summer really does play tricks on us. The long hours of daylight make it seem like the days last forever, like we've got all the time in the world when in reality they have the same number of hours they always had and we run out of time quickly.

"It seems just suddenly the weeks are gone.  What did I do? I don't know. What am I doing this …? I don't know," said Herman Schliefe of Co-Op City.

"I was shopping yesterday and I couldn't believe there was winter boots and coats and all kinds of Halloween items out and I think they're kind of rushing on us a little bit," added Liz Alferi of Hawthorne, N.Y.

"People approach summer as if it's endless. I see it with the adolescents and kids I work with. It feels like its never going to end. I think that because as the end approaches we begin to count it down. I mean we have like more than two weeks to Labor Day. If you had a two-week vacation in February you'd think that would be great," clinical psychologist Michael Wald said.

No matter how you look at it, mid-August is still summer. It's not over yet, despite that nagging feeling.

If you're intent on getting certain things done during the summer season, the experts suggest you create a list and check it often.

That's good advice, perhaps for next year.

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