The phone alarm clock chimes and I smack it to turn on the snooze. A few minutes later, it chimes again and then a few minutes after that, the next alarm sounds.
It’s a cascade effect of annoying sounds, set 15 minutes apart, so that I’ll (theoretically) become so irritated that I just get out of bed.
I started this habit of setting multiple alarms while I was a fulltime professor, because mornings became more and more difficult as I became more and more burned out.
I haven’t broken the habit yet, and by the time I finally get up, I’m sweaty and tangled in my sheets. The August morning is still cool, but I’m overheated. My eyes are gummy, my throat scratchy and dry, and there’s a dull throbbing behind my eyes.
Shit you’re going to be late. My heart races as I see that it’s 7:30 a.m. I should be on the computer already, or headed to campus.
You’re not teaching anymore. My heart slows and I slow the panic. I’m not teaching anymore.
For the first time since the fall semester of 2008, I don’t have classes to teach. I didn’t have to attend meetings last week, or turn in a syllabus for review.
My life, for so long, has been scheduled around the academic year, and now, suddenly, my life is scheduled around… what? The seasons? Holidays? Whatever I want?
It’s an odd feeling, but also a relief. For so long, I felt as if I had to pack all of my living into eight weeks of summer, and two weeks of winter, because the rest was consumed with grading, lesson planning, and being too depressed or anxious to do much else.
I wake up every day feeling as if I’m forgetting something. I wake up every day, knowing that my schedule is mine to create, and the rest of my life is mine to shape.
Ink and Vein 