If you’ve read any of my posts (or talked to me) in the weeks leading up to the beginning of school, you’ve read that I look forward to the waning of summer, the return to the routine of our (sometimes busy) lives. We’ve almost returned, though A’s dance classes don’t start until this Monday, but we haven’t returned all the way.
Or we have, but my energy sure hasn’t.
What I forget about the beginning of the academic year is the sheer level of exhaustion that accompanies it after the first bursts of new! shiny! fun! adrenaline fade into the ether. What remains are tired eyes and a woman who doesn’t want to make dinner, though I try to make dinner, even if it’s simple like quiche or tacos or pasta. This isn’t a new sort of tired; I experience it each year, though I obviously let my brain smooth over it, like the hard memories of waking up with a newborn every thirty minutes.
I love the routine.
That part isn’t an illusion. I do better when there are things structuring the day, blocks of time that I don’t necessarily build: school hours and work hours, classes and games, occasional dinners with friends.
The part that requires adjusting involves the extra early wake-ups. (Ask me how many workouts I’ve done since school started. Surprising no one except me: not many.) It involves the number of people I interact with on a daily basis. I still feel more like an extrovert than some of the people in my house, but I get my best extrovert energy from people I choose to see, and working in a public-facing job means…well, not everyone I interact with brings energy into my life. Some of them suck it straight through their teeth.
We skipped a home football game this week (not the one of us that actually goes to the high school involved), which I didn’t expect to do. I like the energy of football Fridays: the band and the cheerleaders, and in a few weeks I’ll like the scalding hot chocolate they sell at the concession stand. This Friday, though, I sat at home with a bowl of ice cream and possibly a little nap.
I’ll adjust, hopefully in time to enjoy the shifting of summer weather into fall, though I’m also wondering if this is the year I finally try the light lamp I think about each winter. I’ll embrace the early alarm, the quiet workout before the rest of the house awakes, folding laundry while it’s warm, because I know I won’t have time in the morning. I’ll adjust and settle into routine, until it’s time to look forward to a vacation, and then the cycle begins all over again.
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