The struggle to just sit still

After the past few years and everything that has happened, you would think that stopping everything and just chilling out would be easy. At least, I did. I was already so tired, so done, so over it all, that I figured I would just collapse into this new way of life and transition easily. For the first three weeks, this seemed to be the case. But then, the back-to-school jolt hit me, like clockwork, on January 10th. Suddenly, all holiday relaxation was forgotten. All chill was gone. My internal school timetable was telling me that yes, this had all been very nice, but now I needed to get up off my butt and prepare all the things before the students came back - NOW!

It’s not just a teacher thing, of course. We all get that back-to-work feeling, where the brain starts to gear up to deal with the year ahead. But there’s an anxiety particular to teaching that I have noticed compared with the other non-teaching jobs I have had. I think it’s the fact that, even if you’re in a supportive department that has a clear outline for the necessary learning outcomes and assessments for each year level, when it comes down to it, it’s just you and the kids alone in a room. What you’re doing that day is on you and 30 pairs of eyes are all looking at you.

So according to my brain, I should be knee-deep in school admin. I should be a flurry of scribbled notes, highlighters and Post-Its. Instead, I’m sitting in a campervan, in the middle of a field in Ngongotaha, wondering why the hell Brain hasn’t got the memo that we aren’t doing that this year. We are ON LEAVE.

I spent all of today pondering this and came up with this: I think the idea of doing nothing for a year is just too alien and immense for my overachieving nerd brain to comprehend. I’ve made a habit of doing, you see. When I started my job at Massey University, I immediately threw myself into part-time study alongside full-time work. When I moved to Taiwan and didn’t have to get a job, I did anyway and ended up becoming editor of a magazine. It turns out that I don’t really know what to do with myself when I have time to spare and I find ways to cram that time full of extra stuff. In short, I kind of suck at being idle.

The problem is, this year I need to be more (if not totally) idle. I need to give my brain and my body a chance to rest, recover and refuel after being bled dry by an unusually high level of stress for a rather long time. However, it turns out that when you’ve been running on adrenaline for so long, it takes a while to come down. So here I am. Attempting to come down and just BE.

Assisting me with this goal of just being is my new fave mindfulness app, Calm. So far, I have meditated for 81 days, every single day, and the way I managed this was to just to take it one day at a time. Magically, the days just accumulated. I didn’t set a goal of meditating for X number of days… I just did the thing. So today, it dawned on me that this is exactly how I should approach this year. Instead of trying to wrap my head around the concept of “We Have A Whole Year Off And Should Totally Enjoy Every Minute”, I’m just going to wake up and only worry about what we will do for that day, on that day.

So, that’s it, folks. My mind-blowing conclusion is that to relax, I just need to take it one day at a time. But before you demand your money back or point and laugh, know that this is a genuinely novel concept to me. I mean, I’ve heard it plenty of times, but I’ve never put it into practice. I guess, sometimes, the best advice is the oldest advice: Just breathe. Take it one day at a time. Enjoy the moment. Huh, who knew.

Here’s to just being.