Back to School
It’s funny how, even though I graduated from high school twenty years ago, I still think of the first week of September as Back to School time.
I’m not sure why it still sticks in my head this way. Sure, I see ads for back to school supplies, but I don’t think that impacts me any more that the car ads near President’s Day; I don’t think of a weekend in February as Buy a Car time.
Perhaps it is because I still have family directly involved in school. My sister is a teacher, my best friend is a teacher, and my cousin is still in college. Maybe it is knowing they are headed back to the classroom at this time every year that sets the mood. I don’t think so, though, because they start back in August and I have this Back to School feeling very specifically the first week of September.
I think the real cause is two things: 1) my birthday, and 2) the fact that those of us stuck in the 9 to 5 world still try to make summer be a thing.
As far as my birthday goes, it has always been associated with the first week of school. I literally started kindergarten on my fifth birthday. The first day of school always hovered around my birthday, inevitably conflating the two events in my mind. I have always shamelessly loved and proclaimed my birthday to the world: hello humans, I was born, let us eat as much cake as possible! For me the excitement starts building in the second half of August and on the first day of September I get positively bubbly with joy because it is, in my mind, my month! It’s not really about gifts (although gifts are nice) or cake (although cake may be the meaning of life - at least my life). It’s more about this being the anniversary of when I landed on the earthly plain and I made it another year and I’m starting a new one and that is freaking exciting. Maybe the Back to School feeling isn’t about school at all, but this time of year just feels like my own personal New Year.
Every job I’ve had as an alleged grown up has been year-round, meaning no summer or winter break, just a few weeks of vacation, mine to take whenever I want as long as my supervisor approves. This, I have come to understand, is the norm, which is a hard thing to accept after spending at least 15 years on the school schedule which includes a break of some kind in every season. Of course there are holidays on the standard work calendar too, but they vary depending on your place of employment. At Barnes & Noble the only two days the store was closed during the year was Thanksgiving and Christmas. Where I work now we have multiple days off for both of those holidays as well as several other days sprinkled throughout the year when the office is closed.
Even though we can take vacation any time we want throughout the year, the majority of people still go away during the summer. This, obviously, is because a lot of them have children so they have to travel while the kids are out of school. But even those of us who are childless (or have furry children) still take the majority of our time off during the summer. Speaking for myself, it is easier to be away from work when others are also away. Things slow down over the summer and during the weeks around Christmas because so many people are traveling or taking time off. You end up returning to fewer emails because the people who normally email you were also away. It’s less stressful and it does create this slower paced summertime vibe at the office.
Which, of course, means that once school is back in session, work kicks back into high gear. After the long weekend for Labor Day I know I am walking back into what will be an extremely busy six weeks. There is lots of travel coming, lots of meetings, several big events. And once those six weeks are up, there will be the inevitable catching up on all the work I put off during the really busy times. I will just barely catch up in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then we will be off to the races again in January with very little slow down until June.
So you see even in the grown up world of the 9 to 5, our patterns are still shaped like a school year. I find myself wondering if I will ever measure time by calendar years or if it will always feel like the year starts in September. Maybe retirement will feel different.
I’m not complaining about this Back to School vibe that hangs over this time, but I do wish one thing. As a kid, Back to School meant picking out new school supplies: pens, pencils, pencil case, notebooks, Trapper Keeper, maybe a new backpack if the old one was really beat up. I got to cover textbooks in paper grocery bags and decide how I wanted to decorate the covers. I got to decide what day of the week I would use which pen (that was more my OCD deciding than me, but I digress). I got to compare schedules with friends and see who I shared classes with, figuring out who I would sit with at lunch, hoping that I’d have a friend in every class.
As an adult there is nothing new about the Back to School season, at least for me. It’s just back to the same job I’ve been doing over the summer, only now there will be more pressure. It’s back to struggling to find time to make and eat a healthy meal as opposed to eating whatever I can grab quickly. It’s back to struggling to find time to exercise, time to engage in the hobbies I enjoy. These are, obviously, first world problems, but it is a real bummer during a time of year that used to brim with excitement.
It’s not all bad, though. We do still have my birthday to celebrate. You’re welcome that I was born.
(Yes, I am actually that annoying about my birthday. Disgusting, isn’t it?)
