summer freedom

August. The month when Europe is on vacation for a full 4 weeks. And apparently, my husband, too. He has accumulated so much vacation that he is going to take 4 weeks off - otherwise he would lose it . I am excited that he will be here for a nice long stretch.

The only thing is that currently we don’t have any real plans for this month.

It’s a unique position that I keep finding myself in since we moved – looking into a stretch of time with no looming obligations, and complete freedom for how to fill up that time. This applies inside and outside of work. While I don’t have 4 weeks of vacation to use up this month, I don’t have many obligations outside of work just yet. And at work, I’ve been given an enormous amount of flexibility to create my own schedule. I recognize how unusual it is to have this sort of freedom, and I am trying to enjoy it. However, I have to admit that it is kind of stressing me out. I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean we all know that when your days are completely packed with to-dos that it’s easy to feel stressed out. But when your days are empty? Why is that a problem?

Thinking back to some of the busier times, though, I remember that I thrived in school, when I had classes with a set schedule, and syllabi full of assignments and problem sets. When given all of those things, I could map out a good routine for myself to get a lot of work done. I had to check in constantly in the form of submitting assignments and taking exams. At the same time, outside of class, I was in a sorority. And I loved it. I loved all the organized events we had planned throughout the semester. Aside from that, I was living with all of my friends. So during the periods where I didn’t have anything going on, there were people around who’d suggest doing stuff. In essence: I was always busy. And it was great.

Life after college was a big adjustment but even looking at my life in Chicago, things were much more structured. Yes I had a research job with a lot of freedom – but I had to attend 3 lab meetings per week, and more individual meetings. There were experiment schedules and grant deadlines and IRB renewal dates to plan around. Outside of work, I had several groups I was involved in that kept me busy, along with the multiple friends to make plans with. And for exercise – well last year I ran 3 races; 5 miles in March, 13.1 in August, and 9.3 in November. Each of those races had training plans that I stuck to. And I belonged to a gym with schedules of classes that I could attend during my lunch hour. I was a regular at yoga, and during the winter, spinning class.

Right now? Not so busy. There have been a few weeks at work with deadlines that were busy. Those weeks, I got a lot done and felt pretty good about myself. And there was the week when I had multiple evenings where I actually had plans. I definitely felt happier then too. But day to day, it’s all this loosey goosey crap. Looking at all of this, the theme is structure. I thrive when there is a lot of structure; I struggle in its absence.

I think it’s that when you have all those activities and obligations with dates and deadlines, you are forced to schedule your life down to itemized increments, so as to stay on top of everything. In the absence of those deadlines, that scheduled urgency disappears. I find myself procrastinating on so many things – paperwork, cleaning, exercise, making plans for traveling or hanging out with people. It is annoying! In college I was the type who would do my homework right away so that I could go out to the bar with my friends in the evening. I was on the ball. Haha. But seriously, sometimes thinking back I can’t help but wonder what happened. The past two summers, I trained for a half marathon. I was running at least 3 days/week and going to yoga classes. This summer, I am struggling to get myself to work out twice per week. And there is NO excuse for that! I have more time than I did at any other point that I can remember. Well, except for the month of “unemployment” that I had – just a month between when my grad school funding ran out after I finished my masters, and before I officially started my lab job. I do remember floundering at that time, too, though. And I was glad it was only for one month. I mean I kept going into work, even though I wasn’t getting paid!

Anyway, this post is nothing much more than me writing out my thoughts on where I am in my life right now. I am feeling perplexed about all of this. I feel like I should be this using this newfound freedom for some big ‘carpe diem’ moments where I carve out some great ambitious paths for our newest life stage. And yet. Even though I find myself with plenty of free time, I am struggling to get myself to put my laundry away on a regular basis, or to get up and exercise in the morning, or to even write a little blog post.

So, time to get myself back into some routines! I have started making more lists, even with little stuff, so that I can check things off and feel a sense of accomplishment. Signing up for that dance class was a great move since it gives me an hour a week where I know I will definitely be exercising. And having fun and meeting some people at the same time. Sadly there are only 2 more weeks left, but maybe I’ll find some other classes to take. I’m also trying to push myself to run more and write more and clean more – all part of the to-do lists. And I’ve been sending out emails to people about making plans for fun activities.

This weekend I think Steve and I will have to sit down and try to plan some last minute trips for the next few weeks. Otherwise I know he will get extremely antsy with nothing going on during the week! Might have to come up with some projects around the house too ;) More painting perhaps? Or another table of some sort? In any case, I realize this is a good problem to have, so I will just stay positive and look at our unscheduled days as brimming with possibility. Who knows where we will end up?