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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

One Last Day

Today is a decidedly significant one for all the kids in North Pacific County: it's their last day of unfettered freedom. Tomorrow is the first day of school! As an old geezer, I've been looking forward to tomorrow all summer long -- it means the neighborhood will become much quieter during the day. ; )

On the other hand, this transition from carefree days to the school routine does bring back a flood of memories. As a youth, far different than most of my compatriots, I LOVED school. While I looked forward to summer vacation just like every other kid, to be quite frank, I didn't really like it.

Because I didn't have very many friends, summers meant even more time being alone. After about one or two weeks, I was ready to get back to school! Unfortunately, the vacation lasted much longer than that. After awhile, summers became very monotonous, only to be saved...sort of...by family trips.

But here's the interesting part of all this. While I was ready to go back to school in late June or early July, I absolutely loathed the day before school began. For starters, I thought of all the things I could have done during the summer that I never got around to doing. So, I would spend that last day lamenting those wasted months.

The other part of my dread has to do with my Asperger's: Going to school was a new pattern and, as I've detailed in this space before, I don't handle transitions well at all. While I looked forward to the act of being in school, it meant that my routine for the past three months would be drastically altered and this produced massive anxiety every single year.

Once the school year got underway and I established the routine of attendance, this brand of anxiety would dissipate. And I loved the structured routine of school -- far more than almost anyone I've ever met. I didn't necessarily like the social context, mind you, but I liked knowing where I needed to be when I needed to be.

2 comments:

  1. I can relate quite a bit to the part about breaking routines and transitions. This is why I am always anxious around the first week of classes, and probably always will be (if I end up in the education industry permanently).

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  2. ha! i was exactly the opposite... i love change, so i was always very excited about the first day of school, but then when things got into a routine in about a month or so i would become bored and lethargic and ready for summer again. but i was homeschooled, so socially i got to interact with other kids more during the summer.

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