Decompress

I'm reminded again today how much I love the first day of summer. Not that I get a summer break - as the technology coordinator, the summer is when I do all the maintenance work that I don't get to during the school year. No, what I feel on the first day of summer break is the release of the pressure valve. (Do you hear the hissing?) A brief respite from deadlines, the idea that time is my friend rather than my enemy. What classes would I like to take? What books should I read? Maybe I'll finally get to learn Mac OS as well as I know Windows. This is what I love - the sweetness of possibilities.

Right now I'm pretty well finished with endings. I saw the usual end-of-the-school-year stuff through a different lens this year; my youngest graduated high school this year and it seemed to me that I was focused like a laser on taking in every minute, every feeling, every farewell spoken by her and her classmates. I've been fortunate to have been teaching in her schools since she was in the fourth grade, with one brief year of separation. It's provided an additional dimension to our relationship, one which I treasure and slightly fear being wihtout. But it also gave me an enhanced relationship with all her 76 classmates as well. So it was an intense closing this year. I'm grateful for the first day of summer to allow me to close the door quietly.

No students, no teachers, no phones ringing - just me in my lab with all this hardware in various states of dysfunction. Oddly comforting (it is, after all, job security!) as much as it is frustrating, it still represents the open possibilities of the days ahead of me.

I love summer.