Well the school year has officially been over for about three weeks now and though most of it’s a blur of papers, parties and panic attacks it is finally over (go me!). That’s three weeks I’ve been back home, three weeks I’ve had to settle back into my house and routines, three weeks I’ve been able to see all my old friends. Three weeks of doing really just nothing and I gotta say I’m pretty sick of it. Hell, I’m almost looking forward to working again (and supermarket jobs suck).
I didn’t actually do nothing, it’s not like I just melted into my couch for three weeks enthralled in shitty daytime cable – I mean I did do that but not the whole time. I guess I did what most other people would do. I unwound and saw all the old sites of Saratoga Springs which unlike me didn’t seem to change at all, the exact same just like they’d always been. I saw my friends from high-school staying up late and catching up, reminiscing and mostly bullshitting like all good friends do. And of course I did the obligatory welcome home dinner with my family. This might’ve actually been my favorite thing, I have no way to prove it but by the end of the year all that $3 cafeteria food really started messing with my whole digestive and metabolic process – there were days where I didn’t eat a thing. After all this unwinding I realized about a week ago, maybe less, that I was sick of it all. I was in some awful rut where nothing was getting done. I was just existing not actually doing anything of value. I was driving myself crazy with the monotony of nothing.
I’m not saying serving cafeteria slop to college kids was the best thing in the world, nor were any of my other jobs for that matter. What those jobs gave me though was some sort of validation that what I was doing mattered at least a little bit. They did this of course by paying me. School is the exact same thing, going to college isn’t all that special – I’m not even the first one in my family to go to college – but but the grades I got on papers or midterms or whatever gave my me some sort of physical proof that I was doing something worth while with my time.
Since I was fourteen I’ve always been either in school or tied down to a job, after so many years I guess I’m just used to doing something, relaxing too much just isn’t for me. The reason I’m even writing this article is so I can do something productive. These last three weeks have been a breath of leisure the likes of which I have not experienced in quite some time. I’m starting a new job soon though and this leisure must come to an end. Looking back on it now I can safely say I will not miss it much at all, it’s time for me to get back to work.
