Sunday, June 15, 2025
Tomorrow is Monday, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I won’t need an alarm. No rushed coffee. No email pings before sunrise. No behavior charts waiting on my desk or IEP meetings hovering in my calendar like storm clouds.
It’s quiet.
Summer has arrived—not with fireworks or fanfare, but with a long, exhaled breath. One long weekend stretched out into the unknown, and I don’t have any plans except to have no plans. That, in itself, feels fantastic yet surreal. It’s strange—how unnatural it feels to stop. My body still buzzes like it’s bracing for the next interruption. I catch myself reaching for my lanyard, listening for the bell, wondering what prep period I’m missing. I’m not sure yet how to unhook myself from the school year's pace. My body doesn’t quite trust that the storm has passed.
This kind of stillness feels almost guilty. Shouldn’t I be doing something? Fixing something? Helping someone? But there’s nothing urgent tonight. No child’s meltdown to soothe. No curriculum map to revise. Just me and just now. There’s laundry to be done and dishes in the sink, but they can wait. Everything can wait. I’ve earned this slowness. Not because I’m lazy and not because I’m giving up, but because I’ve been holding too much for too long.
The ache in my shoulders hasn’t disappeared. The weariness in my bones still lingers. Burnout doesn’t clock out just because summer clocks in. But today, I felt the smallest spark of something I haven’t felt in months: permission. Permission to rest without performing. To sleep without guilt. To be without being needed. Maybe tomorrow I’ll sit in the sun. Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll read a book that has nothing to do with education. Or maybe I’ll stare at the ceiling and let the silence wash over me like a balm. All I know is: for the first time in a long time, I’m not bracing for Monday. And that is enough.
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