⏲️ On Time

I’m a high school English teacher, which leads to this being my favorite time of year. Summer feels like a form of early, annual retirement. I don’t have to follow a schedule, the commitments are minimal, and the pressure non-existent.

Yet that also leads to a certain ennui, at least this summer. Sometimes the amount of choices can feel overwhelming. The other issue is responsibility: as a father of an eight- and three-year-old, it never actually goes away. The instinct to relax, to read, to decompress goes against their need for structure and routine. They crave (rightfully) new experiences and sensations, while middle-aged me seeks the familiar, worn paths.

It has been a battle this summer between lazy me and present me. Lazy me will spend hours staring at this website deciding which font to use, while present me will go down waterslides with his son and recapture a bit of his youth. Lazy me just goes along with the flow of the internet, reading whatever comes his way; present me gets invested in a book and feels a sense of attachment to the story and characters (or argument, if it is non-fiction).

Why write all this? For me. To remind myself of what matters. Seriousness is a virtue, and so is joy; ennui is the path to neither. I do better when the screens are closed and off because I am forced to behold what is right in front of me.

I don’t remember the details, but there is this great quote floating out there somewhere about how our lives are made up of how we spend our days. My Thursday morning decisions matter. It’s time to close the laptop and check on the kids.