Summer Spaciousness
Intentionality is the antidote to the back-to-school blahs
My life has been on an academic calendar since I was five years old. There has not been a single autumn since then where I wasn’t either a student, the mom of a student, employed at a university, or married to a university employee (sometimes several of these at once). No wonder that I feel at home among the back-to-school energy every August!
Like always, my husband has been pulled more and more to his office and his laptop at home. Our son toured his new building, picked out school supplies, and is working through his list of “the last times” he’ll do various summer activities.
Typically, I’m all about the mix of anticipation, preparation (love making a good plan!), and excitement that this time of year brings. I’ve always been the nerd who loved going back to school, whatever my role. I thrived on the novelty and challenge of starting fresh.
But this year feels different. I’m not ready for summer to end.
It’s not the heat or even the sunshine that has interrupted the Pittsburgh gray skies that makes an extended summer appealing to me this year. I’ll do more of my preferred outdoor activities in the cool of fall.
But leave me the looser summer days, where schedules needn’t be so rigidly orchestrated. It’s not like I’ve been on vacation the whole summer, but the relentless grind eases when homework and fixed bedtimes are paused.
It’s not summer I crave. I’m longing for is more spaciousness in my life.
Spaciousness is about having the freedom to choose at least some of what I do and when, since there is time to configure the tasks in various ways. It’s about savoring the moment I presently inhabit, rather than rushing from task to task at the buzz of an alarm. I can say yes to spontaneity because I haven’t packed my schedule full of obligations down to the minute.
Summer doesn’t guarantee spaciousness, but I managed to create it this year. And that’s part of the challenging thing about spaciousness: I bear responsibility for creating it in my life year-round. I must protect myself from the forces that pull for my time, my energy, my resources. No one is going to do that for me.
It’s hard to feel those pulls on me, even when they are unspoken. When you are sensitive to the people and systems around you, you cannot avoid noticing what is expected of you. I want to do all the things, please all the people, because it makes everyone around me happier. On some level, their happiness is a relief to me. Never mind the fact that I also feel anxious, burned out, and stretched too thin in the process.
In years past, back-to-school was a time where I received gold stars for doing all the expected things and more. The heady rush of external validation is a drug I’ve chased every fall, but I think I’m going sober this year.
There isn’t a road map for this path I’m taking, but I know I’ll be setting boundaries around how far I spread my energy. I know I’ll get fewer gold stars. Ouch. I may even question myself about whether I couldn’t just sign up for that one PTO fundraiser or volunteer for that brief event at the school. (No, I can’t do that and protect my spaciousness. I’ll live without the pat on the back.)
This fall, my family and I will be busy, more so than during the summer. But busyness isn’t the problem. Busyness isn’t what poisons our sense of spaciousness.
Spaciousness evaporates when we mindlessly go through the rat race of life, filling our time without exercising our freedom to choose how and when and why. Intentionality is what creates spaciousness.
Without realizing it, I’ve practiced intentionality throughout this summer. Intentionality has allowed me to perceive spaciousness in my life, despite working, maintaining my home, caring for our dog, and doing all the other things I do for and with the people and organizations that matter to me.
Perhaps the novelty of this back-to-school season for me is learning to sustain my intentionality around creating spaciousness amidst the increased demands of the academic year. I trust myself to discern how to walk this path and find people to support me in the process.
I’ll bring summer’s spaciousness into autumn. Care to join me in the process?
Absolutely, Lori! Spaciousness is essential to me, too. I always see Friday as my reset day, when I let go of the responsibilities and enjoy a greater sense of spaciousness. I appreciate your clarity going forward into the fall.