We have always found ways to measure time. The sun rises and it sets. The Earth circles the sun. Then we take these times given to us by our environment and create smaller pockets of time within them. In days we create hours, in years we create months. So many decisions, whether well-informed, misinformed, or not informed at all, dictate the way in which we view the world around us, and even how we view ourselves.

Ever since elementary school our time clocks run on the school schedule. That is, we work from September to June with a couple of weeks as a break during the winter, and sporadic three day weekends sprinkled throughout the year. The summers were ones of back-to-back sleepovers, video game marathons, hours upon hours at the pool, and a general lack of ability to remember what day of the week it was. The winter break crammed all the enjoyment of summer into two weeks as the holiday festivities livened up the dreary winter and we could finally forget homework, if only for a few weeks.

Eventually, even these carefree summers faded as we got summer jobs and other responsibilities started pressing in. Even so, the summers were still cherished. College didn’t change any of that. In fact, it gave us a second break to look forward to: winter break. Instead of a two-week pause, this break became a month or more stop to school. Entirely new classes began the next semester, so the burden of any impending assignments was now lost.

Now I look back on the progression of these breaks, and I am sad to see them go. They were my measurement of time, of life. When school got overwhelming, when responsibilities weighed me down, when all I wanted was for everything to stop, I knew it would. I knew that a break would be coming soon.

A semester lasts 14 academic weeks. So you figure that, altogether, it lasts 16 weeks due to the small breaks and such that extend the time. No matter what, you only had to deal with everything for four months before it would finally stop, or at least enough would stop so you could catch your breath. Plus, odds are it took at least a few weeks, if not more, to get overwhelmed, thus shortening the time you spent waiting for break.

That guarantee is now ending. With two more weeks left of the last break I will ever have, I tend to panic a little. I will never again have this stretch of time that is purely for me to recharge. Because so much of it is a mindset thing. In past breaks I have worked on classes for next semester, and on every break I worked as much as I could at my job. But it was a break from the pressures of school, so even if it wasn’t a solid month of being a couch potato, in my mind it was and so my mind got that rest.

Life will be different. As scary as it may be, looking ahead I have to recognize that the entire structure of my life will change, and that is okay. I won’t have class during the day and homework at night. I won’t have grades looming over my head. So maybe to be rid of these, I have to be rid of these breaks too.

I will miss these school breaks. I will miss how they dictated my timing of the year, and the timing of my life. But I know that I won’t have these breaks because I won’t need them. Life will be constant, for the most part, but it won’t be overwhelming. Unless I choose such a job, I will not need to worry and stress about it both while I am there and while I am not. Work will be contained in work, and instead of taking all of my free time and putting it into two breaks throughout the years, I will have many more small breaks just by having small pockets of free time every day.

Goodbye to school breaks. I enjoyed every moments of them, and I will miss their presence. Now I have to move on, because I have outgrown school breaks and it is time to take on the much smaller, but much more frequent, breaks of everyday life.