Summer Break

One of the many reasons that I stay involved in public education is the delicacy of having eight weeks off in the summer. If you believe the teachers on social media, teachers actually work a lot during the summer. I decidedly DON’T. I do not do anything school related until I start feeling pressure at the end of July. And I mean the VERY END.

But although I take a break from anything school related during the summer I do need ways to avoid that whirling vortex of extreme boredom that summer entails. We can’t go out and spend money every day. We have to entertain ourselves. The saying goes that idle hands are the devil’s playthings, but for me it’s an idle mind.

My idle mind falls into anxiety spirals. Am I doing enough? Am I, in fact, good enough? Why can’t I hear God in prayer? WHY HASN’T MY SPECIAL PERSON TEXTED ME BACK??? It really doesn’t stop.

My mind finds plenty of reasons to worry, real and invented.

And so I think that writing could be a good way to keep my mind occupied during the summer.

In past summers I have numbed the anxiety for arranging to not be home for most of the summer. Being in a new place keeps the mind busy because everything is new. This summer I am not leaving the country until after the fourth of July.

Now I have spent 19 days of my summer in various pursuits and for the most part avoiding the anxiety spiral. Here are some things that have helped so far:

• Praying Liturgy of the Hours morning prayer first thing in the morning.
• Reading a LONG book.
• Remembering that safety comes from God not from controlling a situation.
• Making up interesting stories in Sims 4. Do you know that I have a family with an alien best friend who moved in and then he married a vampire? And the man and his abff hated children, but two children are in the house? And I disabled the Seasons pack so that they can make a lot of money just by harvesting tulips. They even have a dog named Cosmo.
• Painting, writing, art. Although I am easily discouraged, I persist.
• Taking daily naps.
• Drinking a midafternoon cafecito.