What is your favorite season of year? Why?
When this prompt came up last time, I’m pretty sure I waxed poetically about the summer. Or maybe the winter. I love cold weather. But honestly, I really don’t know anymore.
If I wrote about the summer, it was because of summer break. The whole ‘lazy days’ of summer concept made it appealing. I was a teacher, I had summers off. Now I don’t. And honestly, while I am working quite hard this summer, I have been looking forward to it. Simply because I’ve never worked this hard in the summer. Even when I was a principal, I started my administration contract on July 1st, so I had June off. Then it was summer hours. Tuesday-Thursday, 9am-1pm. When I quit last year, my contract ended on June 30th. So I have never had a full summer of Monday-Friday working. This is a very new experience for me. And truthfully, I don’t hate it.
This is the second week of the summer kids program I coordinate and it’s going by fast! I’ve gotten into a routine of how the day goes with classes starting and ending. My secretary is back from her honeymoon, so I am no longer overwhelmed with doing all the things I need to do plus the things I would normally give her to do. I am back to leaving work mostly at 5:00. This Friday, I am determined to leave at 1:30 as our summer working hours dictate. Today I was making plans for weeks 3 and 4. Already getting close to the end of June, mentally anyway.
I’m not having lazy days. I don’t even feel like I could comfortably take a day off without worrying about what has to get done at work while I’m gone. But when this is all over, it will be fall. Or at least the middle of August, which is nearing the end of the summer, which is good enough for me.
This program ends on August 14th. Teachers will already be back at school having teacher workdays prepping for the new school year. And I will be breathing a sigh of relief with my whole body. I am so looking forward to it!
This busy work season will be over and I will look forward to cooling temperatures—standing on a black top parking lot for 30 minutes waiting on parents to drop-off and pick-up their kids is already a sweaty nightmare. My hair is too thick for comfort, but when I pull it up my exposed neck and shoulders get sunburned.
When this is over, it will be hot and humid still, but those cool days will be closer to starting. The autumn takes longer to get here than in other places, but I will be absolutely ready for it then. All those fall holidays will be on the horizon. And best of all, I’ll get to take a vacation. What will that be like??? I’m so used to taking trips in the summer when everyone else does that it’s going to be so interesting taking a trip at a different time of the year. I thought today that I might take a long weekend and drive up to see my sisters in Ohio. It’s a 10-hour drive, but I’m used to doing it alone and haven’t done it in a while. My husband and I are also going to brainstorm trips we can go on so we can sync up our vacations and do something together. In the fall. We could go to the beach and pay off-season prices. We could go leaf peeping in the mountains. Everyone else will be doing that too, but we’ve never done it because I was in school then and didn’t really take days off unless I was sick.
There are so many possibilities! In the fall. I think that’s my new favorite season. It will be like my summer “break”. I’ll still have to work, but it will be a lot easier to take days off when I want to.
This really is a new life. A new season for me. My concept of time and the time of year and the feelings associated with the different seasons are all new. And I love every bit of it.
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