…Spring break ’09

Apr 03

Being a teacher has its perks, chief among them is tons of time off. But what most people tend to overlook when pointing out this acknowledged benefit is that without so much time off most teachers would probably quit. These strategically placed (thank you Christianity) breaks are needed and well deserved decompression and recuperation periods, without which a teacher’s brain would surely collapse upon itself creating a micro black hole whereby (mostly) innocent and (somewhat) undeserving students and/or any other bystander who might happen to be within the rapidly expanding void’s accretion disk would be irrevocably drawn in, only further feeding the mass until the whole world was consumed.

Spring break is the last of these extended respites before the summer break. As I walked out of my class on Friday I could feel the weight of responsibility falling from my shoulders. I was determined to do as little as possible relating to work as I could. But today, a week from that day, I look back on this Spring break with mixed feelings.

To be sure, I have done absolutely nothing at all relating to work. I have not graded any papers. I have not read any student assignments. I have not even checked my school email to clear out all the "your mailbox is over its size limit" messages. My goal, of course, was to disconnect with the everyday stress and annoyances that accompany tedious everyday work tasks.

I intended to replace those tasks with things that I would rather be spending my time doing. Reading for fun, working on my own writing, spending time with my wife, taking care of things around the house. These are things that would bring me pleasure, make me feel productive and that my time was well spent. This was my prescription for recuperation after the last few months of mental and emotional fatigue from work.

But here I am, three days of break left, and I don’t feel that I have accomplished half of the things that I wanted to. From that list, the one thing that I have been able to get the most enjoyment out of is spending time at home with my wife. Her schedule as a grad student has demanded that much of our time together be spent focused on assignments, but we have been able to spend much of our mutual down time lounging together. We have enjoyed each other’s company, and have been able to develop a mutual fondness for the Golden Girls, which is on several times a day. I have not read much, other than the new issues of the comics that I collect, and the back log of books that I need/want to read grew larger. I have spent some time both writing new things and revising pieces that I have completed, but I never feel that I accomplish enough with my writing; there is always more that can be done. I did replace the faucet on our kitchen sink, which was needed, and we did some gardening and cleaning. But many of the things that I had wanted to do around the house remain undone.

All of this should be a good thing, right? Much of my time has been spent listening to music, perusing the internet, watching the Golden Girls (I heart Rose), and otherwise relaxing. But here I am, Spring break winding down and I feel anxious. Not about returning to work, but about leaving so much undone. I am nagged by the sensation that I am wasting so much time that I will never recover.

I feel guilty.

I am the perpetual procrastinator. It is something that I have mastered over the years: the rationale that I can relax today because tomorrow is just as open and available to do such things. Old habits die hard, as they say.

But I will not mark this as a loss. I have done some of the things that I wanted, and that is a good place to begin motivating myself. I see what is accomplished when I actually get off the couch, which now has one cushion with a nice Finlos’s butt-sized indentation squished into it. And there are, after all, three days left.