The last day of July began with the smell of freshly fallen rain. This bittersweet aroma and reminder that yes, hopefully, it would finally start to cool off-just in time for school to start. As someone who has always lived life as dictated by the seasons of school, this summer I discovered that the stress from school followed me from June into July: what I will bitterly refer to as the hang-xiety, the anxiety hangover. This han-xiety realization made me even more determined to maximize every moment of summer, in a futile protest to cling to every second of time teachers have to rest, relax and ideally recharge for the next year ahead. The following is my, personal, professional teacher’s hot take on how summers off is not actually all that hot.

Terrible teacher Truth # 1

SUMMER IS NOT ALL THAT GREAT.

It can be a challenge to turn off the cycle of teacher stress in the summer, when we are supposed to be “off the clock,” creating a stressful summer.

During the school year, I would occasionally wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. running through my mental to-do list, coaxing myself back to the lull of sleep, reminding myself I was safe. Tell me then, why I was surprised when I woke up in June, a week after school ended, at 4 am with the panicked feeling that I had forgotten to do something? The worst thing is, I know in my heart and soul (and from the texts in the teacher group chat) that other teachers’ stress patterns continued into the summer months as well.

Please don’t get me wrong- like many teachers, I love and appreciate my hard earned freedom to binge watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy each summer. Every time Aragorn opens the doors to Helms Deep (you know what I mean), all is right with the world. But this is not this world that Tolkien created, some scholars would argue, and while the soul can feel soothed by Arwen’s elvish tongue, I realized that I still needed to find a sense of peace in my own world, during my own summer days. Even after defeating Sauron I had to come to terms with the constant anxious itch under my skin, the knot in my stomach, the worry that I was not doing enough, that there was more I needed to do. How dare I relax when there was so much to do?!

Teachers, in my experience, are so trained to be consistently working, constantly communicating with families, attending school events, always, always, always thinking about school that it is almost impossible to turn this thought process off in the summer. Most American schools are in session from Aug – June, roughly, eleven months or around ten months each year in absolute go – go – go mode. And you think we can just turn this off for a few weeks each year?

The brain’s neuroplasticity is incredible, but so is the strength of the neural pathways we build everyday. When the overwhelming majority of our year is spent in high stress, survival mode, how can it be any surprise that I struggled to step from survival mode to relaxing and feeling safe? With every non-teacher telling me, “oh you get the summers off you’re so lucky” is that really even true? How can we expect teachers to rest and recharge in one month’s time when we know that the unreasonable expectations await us in the fall?

So I guess that is my first question, query, my wonder for other teachers out there. Does anyone else feel that school time stress in the summer? What about teachers who are also parents, do the summer months feel worth the school year hype?

Terrible Teacher Truth # 2 

RELAXING IS HARD. WHY?

I have no idea how to relax in the summer. Yet. They say practice makes perfect.

Once I realized June was gone and July was flying by, the horror, I became very committed to maximizing each minute of each day to fully enjoy.

My attempts to live each day to the best, to be present and mindful inevitably turned into to do lists to prove my productivity to myself. At first, this strategy of writing out all the fun activities I would do that way was an effective method for me to track all the events of my summer. But what could have been a reflective and relaxing process, turned into another way for me to check my box of “done”.

One strategy that did work for me, was identifying one activity or treat or action, that was purely for joy that day. One day it was sleeping in and enjoying coffee in bed, another it was getting a donut and a different day going for a late night walk on the river. Then it dawned on me, I should also probably be doing this during the school year.

Maybe if I have a more relaxed school year, I will be able to have a more relaxed summer. Easy enough to swallow concept and if you’ve taught for enough years like me, I hope that sentence also made you laugh. So many “out of my control” moments at school, such absurd expectations from admin, abysmal treatment by families, sure yeah I will relax during the school year, sure.

My hope is that maybe I can cultivate small moments of peace and joy that will slowly compound, like the interest on my measly retirement. Just like this summer, while during it I felt stressed and worried- but looking back I remember only the best. I have realized that I can’t hold myself to this expectation that the second the final bell rings, I turn into vacation mode Buddha. Or that the moment I turn off my school alarm, my body knows it’s time to relax and rest. Perhaps it’s a process, a habit, a routine I need to build to wrestle stress to the ground and keep it in a reasonable arena.

Stay tuned to see how that goes.

Ta ta for now darlings.