stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2026-08-06 01:04 am
stevenpiziks) wrote2026-08-06 01:04 am
Entry tags:
Reclaiming August
When I was teaching, summer break went through three phases:
1. June: Woo hoo! Summer break just started!
2. Mid-July: Oh, man. Halfway over! Gotta get out there and enjoy summer break more!
3. August: How can I only have two weeks left already? Don't make me go back. I'm begging you.
The back-to-school stress always started in August when we got the "Welcome Back!" email from administration. I also had to schedule my two "make-up in advance" work days in order to get two religious holidays off during the regular school year, and I did them in early August to get them out of the way. Going into the school building in early August always signaled that break was almost over and created a continual stream of low-level anticipatory stress for the rest of break. It was like knowing you had painful surgery coming up.
But I'm retired now. There's no "Wecome Back!" email for me, no extra workdays, nothing. I still feel like I should be stressed, and sometimes I am. I get these "oh crap" twinges out of nowhere, and it takes me a moment to identify them as back-to-school PTSD. But I'm NOT GOING BACK. That realization makes the stress vanish so fast, I feel like I'm going to float away. It's the best feeling ever.
I loved teaching. I was good at it. Great, really. But in the last ten or fifteen years, the job changed. It got more difficult than it was ever meant to be, with changes in curriculum and all-powerful standardized testing and lower wages and reduced benefits and ever-increasing class sizes. Then the pandemic came along and teachers were vilified because we didn't want to endanger our own lives and teach unmasked students face-to-face, and then we were vilified even more because student test scores dropped during a world-wide disaster, and it was somehow our fault that students didn't learn as well.
Then certain members of the school board and parent community went gunning for me because I'm gay, and I had to defend myself against a fire hose of bigoted conflicts and frivolous legal fights and mean-spirited defamation campaigns that came from a dozen directions all at once. I won every single fight, but it was still off-the-charts stressful. It was also difficult being angry all the time. My job lost its joy and August became a month of dread.
I carried that burden of stress and dread for so long, it became a part of me. I just accepted it as part of the my world, like a fish accepts polluted water.
Now it's August and I don't have to go back to work. It makes me giddy sometimes. A crushing weight is gone and I can fly. It's marvelous and thrilling. I'm loving it.
1. June: Woo hoo! Summer break just started!
2. Mid-July: Oh, man. Halfway over! Gotta get out there and enjoy summer break more!
3. August: How can I only have two weeks left already? Don't make me go back. I'm begging you.
The back-to-school stress always started in August when we got the "Welcome Back!" email from administration. I also had to schedule my two "make-up in advance" work days in order to get two religious holidays off during the regular school year, and I did them in early August to get them out of the way. Going into the school building in early August always signaled that break was almost over and created a continual stream of low-level anticipatory stress for the rest of break. It was like knowing you had painful surgery coming up.
But I'm retired now. There's no "Wecome Back!" email for me, no extra workdays, nothing. I still feel like I should be stressed, and sometimes I am. I get these "oh crap" twinges out of nowhere, and it takes me a moment to identify them as back-to-school PTSD. But I'm NOT GOING BACK. That realization makes the stress vanish so fast, I feel like I'm going to float away. It's the best feeling ever.
I loved teaching. I was good at it. Great, really. But in the last ten or fifteen years, the job changed. It got more difficult than it was ever meant to be, with changes in curriculum and all-powerful standardized testing and lower wages and reduced benefits and ever-increasing class sizes. Then the pandemic came along and teachers were vilified because we didn't want to endanger our own lives and teach unmasked students face-to-face, and then we were vilified even more because student test scores dropped during a world-wide disaster, and it was somehow our fault that students didn't learn as well.
Then certain members of the school board and parent community went gunning for me because I'm gay, and I had to defend myself against a fire hose of bigoted conflicts and frivolous legal fights and mean-spirited defamation campaigns that came from a dozen directions all at once. I won every single fight, but it was still off-the-charts stressful. It was also difficult being angry all the time. My job lost its joy and August became a month of dread.
I carried that burden of stress and dread for so long, it became a part of me. I just accepted it as part of the my world, like a fish accepts polluted water.
Now it's August and I don't have to go back to work. It makes me giddy sometimes. A crushing weight is gone and I can fly. It's marvelous and thrilling. I'm loving it.