Transitioning to Summer Relaxation: A Teacher’s Journey

On the first few days of summer break, I make myself sit on my hammock, especially when the sky is completely blue and clear, with just the faintest wisp of clouds. I love when the air is a lovely mix of cool and warm, and it is completely comfortable to stay outside all day long.

Turning off the alarm

As a teacher, I look forward to these days from the first day of school in September. For ten rigorous months, there is a clock in the back of my brain that is counting down the months the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes until I can turn off my 5:30 alarm for July and August. It is then that I can take that deep, cleansing breath and slow things down.

Here’s what is intriguing: that now that I’m here, I have to actually work to relax. My nervous system has been on endless, relentless overdrive, and for ten months I have been waiting for that moment when the calm coolness can sink in. In the first few days, I’m still waking up in that 5:00 hour, conditioned by years of responsibility, anxiety, and over-scheduling. I imagine it will take a couple of weeks for me to realize that it’s okay to feel okay with relaxing.

My brain and body are so used to being on “GO!”. While I always yearn for this period of “stop,” I have to reteach myself how to do that every single June. I look around the house and think, “what project can I put this energy into?” But to be honest, I don’t really want a project right now, and I have to remind myself that I can be okay with that.

Relaxing is not automatic 

In the first few days of break, I make myself lay in my shaded hammock and rock for a while. I close my eyes and feel the air move, pet the dogs, watch the leaves dance, hear the ambient noise in my neighborhood, and maybe release some muscular tension. It’s a moment when I don’t have to respond, react, create or fix anything.

For someone who has worked full-time for decades, relaxing is not automatic. You have to ease in to the non-work existence. That’s why I choose not to work in the summer, and I’m fortunate to be able to make that choice. My work life gets so intense that I can feel the cortisol flowing through my veins, creating restlessness, rumination and inflammation in my system.

The first few weeks of the transition from work to chill are a little bumpy. My brain wakes me up early despite my desperate desire to sleep in. I spend more time than I care to thinking about what I need to do to get ready for the next school year. I have to remind myself that there’s nowhere that I have to be, that I get to decide where I want to be. Invariably, my days will be packed with things to do, in part because I want to do them and because my brain needs to be engaged with people and activity.

In the summer, I choose to heal and take care of my needs with more intention. It’s a way that I can peel some of the layers back and rekindle who I am outside of the school building. I spend more time exercising, re-jiggering my nutrition, going to doctor appointments, and checking in with myself. Two months flies by quickly, and before I can blink, September is before me.

Mentally planning for retirement

That is why I’m very much looking to this very moment three years from now. That’s when I will officially retire from teaching in the public school and enjoy permanent summer vacation. there will be no more countdown to the grind, no more anticipatory anxiety about what things will look like in September. That’s when the air will be clear for me to make other choices, test other waters, on my own terms.

This year, I attended two retirement parties for friends/colleagues of mine. I kept thinking how it was both bittersweet and apropos to be celebrating their long careers in education. I listened to the beautiful tributes to their service and even gave an impromptu speech of my own for one. I was so happy for them to finally move on and close this chapter of their lives so they could start a new one chasing other life pursuits.

I’ve written about my own pathway to retirement (see Passing the Torch) which has been a central part of my brain space over the last two years. I don’t want to rush, but my heart has acknowledged the need to move on, and I’m now on the three-year plan.

I know that retirement will be a massive shift for me in so many ways. Ingrained in my identity is being a teacher and this has been so for almost three decades. I’m sure that on the day after Labor Day, my programmed brain will be telling me to plan meetings, prepare for events, get ready to teach certain lessons. Every day that ticks by will remind me of the monumental life adjustment. The next three years will be about preparing to let go of all that so I can spend more than two months taking care of me.

Staying present

Before that happens, I will continue to be present throughout the cycles of each school year. As each month passes, I will be mindful that time is fleeting and that I must make the most of every moment. I don’t want to have any regrets, and I want to provide the students that come into my classroom with every opportunity to learn and be creative.

But, in this moment, I am enjoying each day of summer break as it comes. Here’s to happy hammocking!