summer roundup
I feel kind of restless already, eight days after getting back from Mexico. The main problem, I guess, is that I don't have any Big Thing To Do that will take up most of my time/energy, get me out of the house, give my time structure and obligations to someone (specifically, someone who could fire me).
I've thought about looking for a summer job, but have found a lot of ways to rationalize not actually starting to look.
1. I'm only home for six-and-a-half more weeks. By the time I found a place, started work, learned what I needed to do, I'd be putting in my notice.
2. Even if I'm not doing all the traveling I had originally planned to do, I have a couple weekends worth of places to go in July (camping with Tom and some Denver people, Vail with family for a couple nights), and hopefully some other time that I won't be available for regular-type work, so of those few weeks, I'd have to get time off.
3. Maybe this extended lapse in meaningful activity/self-discipline is a break that I needed to take. Last spring ended with little sleep, caffeine-withdrawl or stress-induced migraines, disorganization. Giving things time to sort of breathe a little can't hurt.
4. Let's be honest: I've been kinda sickly since I got back (and even before I left). Congestion, possible lactose intolerance (uh oh), general feelings of weakness, whatever. Body breaking down = sign that I should honestly just relax a little bit.
On the other hand, the lack of structure makes it really really, really easy to put off the things I intend to do, like organizing the crap I brought back from college. I still have a couple of boxes that remain full of unorganized paper detritus. I know that some of that stuff has been moved around in those same boxes from State College PA to Claremont back to Denver without ever really being sorted through, and I know that a little part of me is willing to ship them UPS to Hong Kong without organizing them if it comes to that. It was a priority for the summer, but since I'm not struggling to sandwich it in between work and school and friends and everything else, it gets delayed from mornings to afternoons, afternoons to evenings, evenings to tomorrows.
The stopgap solution, I guess, would be to more eagerly accept the lists of tasks to complete left by the fam when they go to work in the mornings. It would fill the time, I guess. It's just so easy, though, to put those in the same category as tasks I need to do for me: endlessly postponable.
Maybe this summer's lesson is that I won't be content as a house-husband later in life. That occupation was one often mentioned half-jokingly when discussing plans for the future, but this time, now, is teaching me not to joke about it.
This is why, I guess, I'm in a funny place: my parents have basically given me a pass on not working, not paying rent for the summer, so I have the privilege of ample free time. I still have my car, which we plan to sell in August (interested? it's safe, well-maintained, and gets more than 30mpg), so I have the privilege of being able to get away from home whenever, and I don't feel stir-crazy or anything. But I don't, for whatever reason (poverty of imagination?); I sit around, I guess, sleep in, read the paper, do a couple chores, watch some sports on TV or something, read a little. And though this shouldn't be stressful--no pressure from parents to do more, no financial pressure to work, etc--I feel tension, I feel restless, I feel like I'm putting stress on myself because I feel useless for wasting so much time, so many days, being 22, whatever it is.
I've thought about looking for a summer job, but have found a lot of ways to rationalize not actually starting to look.
1. I'm only home for six-and-a-half more weeks. By the time I found a place, started work, learned what I needed to do, I'd be putting in my notice.
2. Even if I'm not doing all the traveling I had originally planned to do, I have a couple weekends worth of places to go in July (camping with Tom and some Denver people, Vail with family for a couple nights), and hopefully some other time that I won't be available for regular-type work, so of those few weeks, I'd have to get time off.
3. Maybe this extended lapse in meaningful activity/self-discipline is a break that I needed to take. Last spring ended with little sleep, caffeine-withdrawl or stress-induced migraines, disorganization. Giving things time to sort of breathe a little can't hurt.
4. Let's be honest: I've been kinda sickly since I got back (and even before I left). Congestion, possible lactose intolerance (uh oh), general feelings of weakness, whatever. Body breaking down = sign that I should honestly just relax a little bit.
On the other hand, the lack of structure makes it really really, really easy to put off the things I intend to do, like organizing the crap I brought back from college. I still have a couple of boxes that remain full of unorganized paper detritus. I know that some of that stuff has been moved around in those same boxes from State College PA to Claremont back to Denver without ever really being sorted through, and I know that a little part of me is willing to ship them UPS to Hong Kong without organizing them if it comes to that. It was a priority for the summer, but since I'm not struggling to sandwich it in between work and school and friends and everything else, it gets delayed from mornings to afternoons, afternoons to evenings, evenings to tomorrows.
The stopgap solution, I guess, would be to more eagerly accept the lists of tasks to complete left by the fam when they go to work in the mornings. It would fill the time, I guess. It's just so easy, though, to put those in the same category as tasks I need to do for me: endlessly postponable.
Maybe this summer's lesson is that I won't be content as a house-husband later in life. That occupation was one often mentioned half-jokingly when discussing plans for the future, but this time, now, is teaching me not to joke about it.
This is why, I guess, I'm in a funny place: my parents have basically given me a pass on not working, not paying rent for the summer, so I have the privilege of ample free time. I still have my car, which we plan to sell in August (interested? it's safe, well-maintained, and gets more than 30mpg), so I have the privilege of being able to get away from home whenever, and I don't feel stir-crazy or anything. But I don't, for whatever reason (poverty of imagination?); I sit around, I guess, sleep in, read the paper, do a couple chores, watch some sports on TV or something, read a little. And though this shouldn't be stressful--no pressure from parents to do more, no financial pressure to work, etc--I feel tension, I feel restless, I feel like I'm putting stress on myself because I feel useless for wasting so much time, so many days, being 22, whatever it is.
* * *
Related problem: I have a lot of time to think about things, but I don't make up my mind about them. To some extent, I think I form opinions, convictions, talking things through with someone. I can't resolve contradictions, prioritize among conflicting outcomes, unless I have the added pressure of dialectic (in the Socrates sense, not the Marx or Hegel sense) to compress my thought process and produce a coherent position. So I have a lot of loose thoughts that need to get tied down before I feel prepared to write about them in this space, share them with people.
I also feel like the increased ratio of "time spent thinking about someone" to "time spent with or talking to someone" that occurs when I'm home doesn't strengthen my relationships with people. It just makes my end of things a little weird, overthoughtout. So a major semi-thought-intensive time suck would bring things more into balance.
I've started keeping a journal, which works as a kind of polarizing filter for my thoughts (think polarized sunglasses, if you don't remember The Way Things Work as closely as I guess I do). It helps, but not quite to the point that they're ready to be transcribed here and internet-ed.
on an unrelated note, I'm going to try a couple entries in a serif font to see if that makes them easier to read.
I also feel like the increased ratio of "time spent thinking about someone" to "time spent with or talking to someone" that occurs when I'm home doesn't strengthen my relationships with people. It just makes my end of things a little weird, overthoughtout. So a major semi-thought-intensive time suck would bring things more into balance.
I've started keeping a journal, which works as a kind of polarizing filter for my thoughts (think polarized sunglasses, if you don't remember The Way Things Work as closely as I guess I do). It helps, but not quite to the point that they're ready to be transcribed here and internet-ed.
on an unrelated note, I'm going to try a couple entries in a serif font to see if that makes them easier to read.
posted by sam at
2:03 PM
1 Comments:
I can understand your restlessness. You just finished being REALLY busy, and are sorta preparing to be REALLY busy again, and this down time has to be pretty strange. I would say, enjoy it while you can!
By
Travelingrant, at 6/18/07, 8:09 AM
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