I’ve been retreating into childhood lately.
Early into this year away from school, I struggled to find my own sense of rhythm in a classroom-less life. I’d jolt awake from nightmares about forgotten lesson plans, and then sweat for a few seconds before remembering I don't need to make them anymore. I still organize my day into 45-minute class blocks. My daytime errands occasionally take me past my former school and it always feels surreal to look up and imagine someone else teaching in the science lab I literally christened with blood, sweat, and tears.
It’s been hard to find full rest in all that.
Teaching memories notwithstanding, I find it difficult to admit to the very need for rest. I grew up as a child of immigrant doers who never took sick days. To this day, my retired Appa still finds things to fix around the house and I've never known my Umma to sit and rest a day in her life. There are some painful stories from their early years in the States that my parents still won’t disclose. Or they’ll gloss over the pain with a sad smile. Oh, it was hard. But you know, we did what we had to.
Knowing all that, I can't get rid of the Guilt Guillotine that hangs menacingly over me when I plan out another ‘Productive Day in Sabbatical’.
> Empty the dishwasher.
> Three loads of laundry.
> Neighborhood errands
> Study for French.
> Go to French class.
> Writing and journaling for an hour
> Prep for dinnerWas it worth all their suffering? All of Umma and Appa’s separation from loved ones, their hard-earned provisions throughout my childhood, and all their nights of clenched-teeth sobbing so I could grow up and…have an enjoyable day?
It’s never sat well with me. It feels better, that is, more familiar, to toil and turn in the sheets with sleepless stress. It feels more natural to blearily chug coffee while driving down the dark road to school (dark, of course, because I could never figure out how to get through my teacher to-do list without getting to school before the sun). But it's proven perplexing to try and enjoy an unemployed life.
James is quick with the reframes in these moments. He seems to know when the familiar furrows form on my brow, when the tears pool in the same places. “You’re not any less for taking a break," he reminds me constantly. "Our bodies were built to rest. Your value isn’t in your work.”
My head happens to agree with him. The rest of me doesn’t, including the itty bitty bones in the end of my finger that felt the need to constantly scroll through online job postings. I still love having time to read, learn, and cultivate new hobbies outside my teaching life. But it’s proven to be quite the task to unravel years of work mindsets - however unhealthy they might be.
When I flew up to visit family a few weeks ago, my brain lugged all of those heavy work-related stresses as its own carry on. I arrived just in time to surprise my niece at carpool, and she clambered for a hug before telling me all about her day at school.
“My friend Nathalie and I helped a hurt friend at recess,” she informed me excitedly after I asked about the highlights of her day. “Then we all spun around and around in circles until we got real dizzy!”
She went on to tell me about some big brouhaha at snack time, but I was still stuck on her last words. When was the last time I spun around and around until I got real dizzy?
As I watched my niece and nephew that weekend, I was further struck by the incongruity their lives.
They invent new games every hour. They scream and shrill at the top of their lungs when they play, just because it's more fun to do it that way. When my nephew threw a fit over dinner by literally throwing his dinner. I felt the oddest pangs of envy. I was jealous of his freedom to express his frustration so freely and openly. I wish my Unofficial Rulebook of Adulthood allowed an occasional pass to throw a tantrum like that every so now and then.
It’s fun - and perhaps even therapeutic - to be an adult kid sometimes.
While I was in town, I watched an episode of Octonauts. It’s my niece and nephew’s favorite PBS show and they gaped at me when I told them I’d never seen it. “You have to watch it!” my niece announced, with all the authority a five-year-old can muster. “The bear captain is my favorite.” I bit my lip back from pointing out the scientific impossibility of a bear living underwater and just watched with them. It’s an adorable show, with all sorts of animals that have no natural business underseas. But my niece is right - the bear captain is totally the best.
Maybe Octonauts was my gateway into all kinds of other childish allowances. I’ve been coloring and drawing. I broke my decade-long boycott from soda and sipped from a nostalgic can of Orange Crush that I randomly found at a gas station (I was fueled by gallons of that syrupy soda goodness as a child). I've written nonsense fairy tales with none of the animals living in their God-given habitats because - as kids know - the best stories are always the impossible ones.
This deliciously illicit retreat into childhood swept over my reading life too. My overdue stack of adult fiction novels from the library has been gathering dust while I’ve been led by a mysterious compulsion toward well-worn copies of youthful favorites. Harry Potter. Percy Jackson. A Wrinkle in Time. The Babysitter’s Club. My Goodreads profile (like a Facebook community for bookworms) has begun to resemble a fifth grader’s.
And then, in the strangest way, the first tendrils of hope broke through. I stopped strangling all the free space in my day planner with productivity. I only hit up job postings once a week, instead of every other day. James' coworkers invited us over for a night of board games and I agreed to go, against all my inner reluctance for adult playtime. By the end of the night, I was fully on Team Board Games because I had such a blast. For me, it seems that letting myself be a child every now and again allows me to stop worrying like an adult. At least, for the time being.
I’m not usually one for poetry, but I adore the first lines of this one from Walt Whitman. It reminds me that it's okay to be an adult who doesn't have all the answers. It's okay to ask hard questions, just for the sake of wondering. It's okay to move into the unknown with nothing but the hopeful stuff of smiles and prayers.
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
[ Full poem available here: A child said what is the grass? ]