I am currently sniffling, sneezing and blowing my nose on repeat like every other allergy sufferer on this side of the pollen-filled hemisphere. It has been like this each day for a solid two months, or whenever Mother Nature decided to infiltrate the air with a “more than normal” amount of those tiny yellow, green particles.
But somehow, despite the fact that it seems like I’ve blown my nose one more time today, and sniffled maybe a bit more than normal, it hasn’t bothered me. The reason? These elevated allergy symptoms are brought to you by actually sitting in the grass on Young Commons and relaxing. That extra sneeze is because I got to sit and eat dinner outside with a friend and not do homework like every other night of the week.
What is this relaxation that I speak of, you ask? Well, it’s this little thing where you put all of your obligations aside for a period of time, and you spend time with someone, not because it’s for a group project or for a meeting. You spend time with a friend because you want to and you choose to. You have a real conversation with a real human being.
And I’m not talking about any of this small-talk stuff. Scratch that, “Hi, how are you?” With the generic response, “I’m good, how are you?” stuff. None of that. This was quality, “How is your life? I truly want to hear how you are doing,” time.
I can’t remember the last time I actually sat down with someone, forgot my commitments, forgot about my schoolwork, for even just 15 minutes. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and actually let myself enjoy the 80-degree weather. I can’t remember the last time I had a real meal with one of my friends that didn’t involve both of us doing homework while eating next to each other and calling it “lunch.”
Today, I let myself forget my obligations. It began as a study break. My friend and I were going on a run and then would get back to our homework, meetings, laundry and everything else that was color-coded in our planners. Well, a simple little run would take care of that, “Hi, how are?” question, but a scheduled, allotted time frame to “hang out” wouldn’t answer how they are truly doing; what’s really happening in their life. A scheduled time to relax, with meetings acting as alarm clocks signaling that the “session” was over, wouldn’t be relaxation at all. In fact, it typically causes more stress.
So, instead of doing that today, my friend and I laid out on the grass for a solid hour (that’s a long time in a college student’s life) and had a conversation. I decided to skip my 5:30 p.m. meeting so I didn’t have to put any constraints on the time.
And for that hour, I forgot what it was like to be sprinting across campus from class to class, meeting to meeting. I was truly and fully able to relax and realized I needed to do it more often, even if that means being itchy afterwards from sitting in the grass and having an extra case of the sniffles.
