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Do you remember watching the cartoons where Wile E. Coyote was chasing after the roadrunner, only to find himself running off a cliff, free falling for about ten thousand feet, finally going *POOF* at the bottom? Yeah, that’s what just happened to my schedule.
Last night, at about 11:45 PM, I submitted my final assignment for an online class, concluding my final class for the summer session and beginning a 33-day stretch of uninterrupted, class-free time. Oddly enough, that’s just the way my schedule worked out this year. As a result, this is the first time I’ve had this much contiguous time off since I started my undergrad classes in ‘06. I hardly know what to do with myself. The long break between fall and spring semesters is almost this long, but the holidays certainly have a way of gobbling up a lot of your free time, almost to the point where you go back in the spring feeling as though you had nary a break at all.
So here I am, going from sixty-to-zero on a dime. I’ve suddenly gone from a state of constant busy-ness and mental pre-occupation to having nothing to do or think about in the evenings. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure this will be something I could get used to, but I won’t lie…it’s a bit overwhelming. As I sit here, in the final moments of my work day (a nod to my award-winning work ethic), on the eve of the first night sans classes (can an evening have an “eve”? or is it a “noon”?), I find myself hesitant to leave my office chair because…what am I going to do when I get home?
Oh sure, I’ll let the dogs out and watch Tucker run headfirst into trees for a couple minutes, but then what? Cook dinner? Get in a good work out? Read a book? Pick up dog turds from the back yard? (You laugh, but the recent acquisition of a perimeter fence combined with hot, mid-Atlantic humidity thick enough to choke on has the backyard smelling like a cross between a zoo and a malfunctioning Diaper Genie, to say nothing of the extra luggage the bottoms of my shoes have been hefting around as of late.)
I know me, and I know that I will find some project or another to fill the void in short order. I just thought I’d take a moment to enjoy and expound on a feeling I’ve not had in quite some time – nothing to do this evening except whatever I want to do. As I sit here, attempting to plan my evening, absolutely nothing comes to mind. It seems as though I have been in school so long, I have become completely unaccustomed to this freedom. The proverbial crickets are chirping; I am in the midst of a true schedule vacuum…it feels like it could go on and on forever. The effect of such a phenomenon is almost dizzying. Can you get high on an empty schedule? Puff, puff, pass me some free time, baby! Whoa. Far out, man. Groovy…and legal, too!
Riiiight. Anyway...
Maybe I’ll come up with something I’d like to do on my way home from “work.” Or perhaps I will let the mental crickets party with some real crickets tonight while I’m out collecting dog poop.
