Much Ado About Nothing
I realize this is a little bit late, but I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Me? I spent mine packed like a sardine in my 89 year old grandmother's one bedroom apartment along with seven other people. What can I say? She's 89. Having Thanksgiving at her "house" makes her very happy.
Most people take the much needed day off for Thanksgiving or any other, insert holiday here, to kick back and enjoy a little much needed R&R. In some cases people also take this particular weekend to get a jump start on shopping for the next holiday. I am not like other people in more ways than one, but I'll just stick one one reason why for today. I've decided I don't know how to properly relax.
In my defense, I think this gene runs in the family, albeit it skipped a generation. My mom seems like she can, but my grandmother is ten times worse than myself. We all constantly joke it's like she has a spring in her butt. I'm not that bad, but I do always have this overwhelming feeling there is something I can be doing rather than doing nothing.
So on most 3, 4 or more holiday breaks from school I lug in my suitcase (yes, suitcase) full of papers that need to be graded and manuals for next week's lesson planning. Most teachers bring all of this stuff home and then they don't even think about it until the day before they have to go back.
Not me. I tend to dig in right away. Why? Because I can't relax, even if it's for 3 days, if I know at the end of the road that I am going to have to work anyhow. So in my mind, it's almost better to get a chunk of work out the way, right away, this way you do have time left over to actually ...relax.
Sometimes I'm lucky and have a day or two when I'm all caught up. It's a rare feeling of accomplishment, but it has happened. I should bask in this feeling I know, but instead my sick and twisted mind starts thinking about how to get ahead. What?! Who? Where did this person come from!??
Before you know it, I rarely get to the relaxing part. In my mind, the perfect relaxation has always involved vegging out in front of the tv, watching a guilty pleasure movie reading a good book you never have time to read. And eventually I do get there. Only problem is I don't know how to relax when I do.
I know what you're thinking. How hard is it to relax? Well for me, very hard actually. I notice this has gotten worse as I am getting older. Perhaps I have adult onset of ADD. Or maybe it's just environmentally induced considering we are living in a multitaskers world and I am a multitasking girl.
Let me give you an example. It's a typical Friday night and perhaps I'm watching a rented movie. It's about 9 o'clock in the evening. All problems, papers, screaming kids that aren't mine have been put on the backburner. Nothing is keeping me from watching this movie. Except for maybe, myself. Because before I know it, I'm out. Oh sure I might only go out for 5 or 10 minutes, but when I wake up, I have missed 5 or 10 minutes that are crucial to the plot. Sometimes I try rewinding it, but if other people are in the room I figure it's no use putting them through the same movie as well. So I suck it up.
Over the past few years I have learned to successfully curtial this more or less, but since no solution is perfect, it doesn't come without a price. A lot of the times I try to do two things at once. So if I want to watch my favorite show on a weeknight, I'll do something else while I watch like grade papers or blog. Only problem with this solution is that I still often end up missing kernels of the plot. This has annoyed other people in my life because they know that I know that I can't really do two things at once, but I'll be damned if I don't continue to try.
The kicker being that if I watch tv without falling asleep and/or doing something else to keep me occupied I find that I get bored. What has happened to me? Sitting around and doing nothing used to be something I was very good at! Nowadays I'll find myself not enjoying the simple act of doing nothing the way that I used to. And doing nothing really well is really... something.
Maybe I should just face the facts. I'm getting older. As Ferris Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around every once and awhile, you might miss it." Lucky for me I didn't miss that line back in the days when I could make it all the way through a movie.
Most people take the much needed day off for Thanksgiving or any other, insert holiday here, to kick back and enjoy a little much needed R&R. In some cases people also take this particular weekend to get a jump start on shopping for the next holiday. I am not like other people in more ways than one, but I'll just stick one one reason why for today. I've decided I don't know how to properly relax.
In my defense, I think this gene runs in the family, albeit it skipped a generation. My mom seems like she can, but my grandmother is ten times worse than myself. We all constantly joke it's like she has a spring in her butt. I'm not that bad, but I do always have this overwhelming feeling there is something I can be doing rather than doing nothing.
So on most 3, 4 or more holiday breaks from school I lug in my suitcase (yes, suitcase) full of papers that need to be graded and manuals for next week's lesson planning. Most teachers bring all of this stuff home and then they don't even think about it until the day before they have to go back.
Not me. I tend to dig in right away. Why? Because I can't relax, even if it's for 3 days, if I know at the end of the road that I am going to have to work anyhow. So in my mind, it's almost better to get a chunk of work out the way, right away, this way you do have time left over to actually ...relax.
Sometimes I'm lucky and have a day or two when I'm all caught up. It's a rare feeling of accomplishment, but it has happened. I should bask in this feeling I know, but instead my sick and twisted mind starts thinking about how to get ahead. What?! Who? Where did this person come from!??
Before you know it, I rarely get to the relaxing part. In my mind, the perfect relaxation has always involved vegging out in front of the tv, watching a guilty pleasure movie reading a good book you never have time to read. And eventually I do get there. Only problem is I don't know how to relax when I do.
I know what you're thinking. How hard is it to relax? Well for me, very hard actually. I notice this has gotten worse as I am getting older. Perhaps I have adult onset of ADD. Or maybe it's just environmentally induced considering we are living in a multitaskers world and I am a multitasking girl.
Let me give you an example. It's a typical Friday night and perhaps I'm watching a rented movie. It's about 9 o'clock in the evening. All problems, papers, screaming kids that aren't mine have been put on the backburner. Nothing is keeping me from watching this movie. Except for maybe, myself. Because before I know it, I'm out. Oh sure I might only go out for 5 or 10 minutes, but when I wake up, I have missed 5 or 10 minutes that are crucial to the plot. Sometimes I try rewinding it, but if other people are in the room I figure it's no use putting them through the same movie as well. So I suck it up.
Over the past few years I have learned to successfully curtial this more or less, but since no solution is perfect, it doesn't come without a price. A lot of the times I try to do two things at once. So if I want to watch my favorite show on a weeknight, I'll do something else while I watch like grade papers or blog. Only problem with this solution is that I still often end up missing kernels of the plot. This has annoyed other people in my life because they know that I know that I can't really do two things at once, but I'll be damned if I don't continue to try.
The kicker being that if I watch tv without falling asleep and/or doing something else to keep me occupied I find that I get bored. What has happened to me? Sitting around and doing nothing used to be something I was very good at! Nowadays I'll find myself not enjoying the simple act of doing nothing the way that I used to. And doing nothing really well is really... something.
Maybe I should just face the facts. I'm getting older. As Ferris Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around every once and awhile, you might miss it." Lucky for me I didn't miss that line back in the days when I could make it all the way through a movie.
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