You know what’s great about not being in grad school anymore and also not being a teacher? Exactly what I expected and long desired, more time at home to do whatever I want. I’m not worried or anxious about having time on the weekend or evenings to do hobby stuff. I haven’t felt like knitting lately, which is my main hobby, but I’m not stressed about it like I would have been had I still been a teacher or in grad school. Free time used to be so scarce that if I didn’t spend that precious free time doing something absolutely fabulous and worthy, I sort of mourned that loss of free time when it ended. It was almost like I had to schedule time for my hobbies when it was the weekend. I felt almost pressured to spend my free time knitting or doing something hobby related because I didn’t get that time very often and I could never be sure when I would have another opportunity. In my new post-teaching/grad school world, I wasted an entire evening this week scrolling videos on Facebook. I didn’t really knit or read a book or anything. It was literally wasted time. I’m not bothered by it though because I have a long line of evenings and weekends ready to go where I will have time again to knit or read if I feel like it. Being out of that school setting and seeing what it’s like not having all that extra work to do makes me wonder why I put up with it for as long as I did. I know why I became a teacher and I know why I enjoyed being one, but now that I’ve moved on from the classroom, I just can’t get over how much I am enjoying the freedom to simply waste time and not feel guilty about it.
The author
Middle-aged Maverick is indeed middle-aged and she’s proud of it. She has a tendency to over think and over analyze many of the things she encounters in her life, as evidenced in many of her posts. She knows how to drive a stick-shift car, prefers Coke over Pepsi, and spent many of her adolescent years being obsessed with Jim Carrey.
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