I am writing this blog sat in my office in an empty school and I have taken a minute to draw breath. I can see the end of this school year in the horizon and am dragging myself there. I have a tendency to become a bit maudlin when I stop and need to be kept busy, and I have to admit I am slightly worried about just stopping for summer. I have never worked so hard as I have these past few months and cannot even begin to process the number of decisions that I have had to make. I know that I have been running on adrenaline to get me through and the stress has been constant.
I know I am the sort of person who needs stress and anxiety to make me feel. I need the heightened emotions. Without them, my life can feel flat which leads me to my negative habits, such as over eating, being stuck in my own thoughts, not appreciating what I have right now and depression. However, I also know that being a person who thrives on stress and having my "stress bucket" full all of the time, it doesn't take a lot to tip me over the over the edge and make my "bucket" over flow. When this happens, my anxiety levels increase, and I fall back to my negative habits again. I have to run my life on a knife edge and there is a sweet spot where things feel good.
As you can imagine, these past few months have been tough. My bucket has been over flowing regularly which has led to me not taking care of myself. I know I need to use the summer to reduce the stress levels in my life where possible, but as I have already explained, it is very hard to manage this as if I reduce my stress too much it can have the same impact. I want to make this summer about being a good husband and daddy, but how can I do that if I need the stress of work to keep me motivated?
I feel like I am lucky. I am aware of my flaws and faults through lots of reflection, counselling and support. I know my triggers and feel like I am in a position where I can talk about these openly. It doesn't mean it is easy for me, I still slip into my negative mindset and it can take me a while to get out of it.
As I said, the thought of completely stopping for a while over the summer fills me with dread, but I know I need a break. My plan is to not do anything for school for three weeks at the start of the break and then focus on reopening the school towards the end. So how am I going to combat these summer holiday blues?
Firstly, being daddy is going to keep me busy. My little boy is three years old and has the most energy of anybody I have ever seen. Between playing football, jumping on the trampoline and playing Monster Trucks, I think I will be busy. I will also need to find other activities for us to do and make it exciting. If anybody follows me on Twitter, you will know that he is very much a mummy's boy at the moment and it is very important I rebuild my relationship with him.
Secondly, my wife is 28 weeks pregnant, so helping out as much as I can will keep me busy. I think I need to learn how to use the vacuum cleaner again! I also have a number of jobs around the house and garden to keep me busy such as painting the garage, painting the front door and scarifying the lawn. I am sure there will also be requests for foot rubs and shoulder rubs a plenty!
Thirdly, I am going to have a big focus on getting fit before the term starts. I have to do this to help me feel better about myself. I cannot use work as an excuse. I cannot use lack of time as an excuse. The only excuse is laziness and that is not good enough!
We will look to possibly have a holiday or break away somewhere, but we are still being very careful and are quite nervous about staying away, but we do realise we need to do something different. I hope that these plans will be enough to keep me in a positive mental place and help me feel refreshed for the new school year.
If you experience the Summer Holiday Blues, please do not suffer in silence. Reach out to others. Put plans in place to keep you busy, but most importantly give yourself a break and look after yourself.
This is really interesting. I totally relate to it. I think the reasons it's hard to talk about is that everyone sees teacher holidays as a major benefit to be envied. If you talk about any downsides it can be met with a sarcastic, 'Yeah, right - it must be SO hard having weeks and weeks off in the summer!'
But I also think it's not necessarily a bad thing to experience difficulties during the long break. As teachers we are lucky to have this time of reflection and if that reflection brings uncomfortable thoughts and feelings we should see that as an opportunity for growth rather than be scared or guilty about it. A lot of people work their…