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I Struggle with the Summer

I struggle with the summer. I know, I know. I’m a teacher, I’m supposed to love having the summers off. All the tired cliches would lead you to believe that teachers and summer are like Garfield and lasagna or whatever other hackneyed pairing our culture can come up with: “What are the three best things about being a teacher? June, July and August haha!” When I tried doing an internet search to see if teachers suffering from depression during the summer, all I found were comments and articles about getting depressed about going back to school in the fall. After the intense and insane schedule I work for ten months out of the year and everything that comes with that, (constant stress, lack of sleep, not eating well, not having enough time- or feeling like I don’t have enough time- to do anything fun) I know that I am supposed to take this time to rest and renew myself. The problem is, after about a week or two of rest and rejuvenation, I become agitated. I start feeling lonely and bored and I just have this general feeling that I have no clue what to do with myself.

This agitation feels so much worse because I also feel the voices of guilt echoing in my brain: “you have two months off, why are you complaining?” “Everyone tells you that burnout is real and that if you don’t take care of yourself then you aren’t going to last long term in the profession.” “Your house  is a disaster and you should be using this massive amount of free time to finally clean and fix it.” “I know the gig you did last summer wasn’t hiring again this summer, but you should have worked harder to find a summer job.” So then I feel worse, not only lonely and aimless but now also guilty for feeling that way.

Maybe I will feel differently in the future, but as my life stands right now: I don’t have kids to spend lots of time with in the summer (something I am looking forward to about being a teacher once I do have children), my wife and I don’t have a lot of disposable income right now to travel or go do fun things during the summer, and she is working 3-4 days a week (because she’s a rock star), and so most days I am just finding myself at a loss. Why is this a problem? Why can’t I just fill my summer with reading and coffee shops and Netflix and actually enjoy my well-earned rest? This is my best explanation:

Purpose. During my “August through May life”  I have a very clear purpose that motivates me, keeps me occupied, and fulfills me. I interact with hundreds of students on a daily basis, students who need me and also give tons back to me because, as I have discovered about myself, I have a deep abiding need to be needed. I am constantly inundated with attention from people, people asking me for my attention, tasks to be completed, problems to be solved. It often exhausts me and overwhelms my introvert brain by the end of the school day, but it also makes me feel alive. During the school year, I have purpose. A purpose that I love and feel intensely that is the right one for me.

And then it just stops.

I realize I may be some sort of weird exception here. That’s fine. Like I said, no kids, can’t afford to travel right now, etc. I don’t have a different purpose that I can just switch over to when the school year ends. So I end up feeling lost and kind of like my life doesn’t have meaning. This feeling is only temporary, and it’s not the worst thing in the world, but it is definitely unpleasant for me.

When I started writing this article, it was the middle of June and I was deep into this feeling of purposelessness and depression. Now it’s the middle of July and I feel completely different. I feel refreshed but also incredibly excited for getting back into choir geekery and the upcoming school year. The Colorado ACDA conference is coming up next week, and my Mini-Camp with my select choir is coming up the week after that. Not only that, but over the past few days I’ve been getting into this podcast/website/social media community called Choir Ninja, founded and maintained by Ryan Guth. I listened to some podcasts that just blew my mind and not only gave me great ideas for the coming year but also shifted my thinking in some pretty big ways regarding my profession and how to best serve my community. I’m also reading a lot. I read an incredibly fascinating and fun book on Broadway musicals entitled The Secret Life of the American Musical written by a Broadway producer and dramaturg who really delves into the craftsmanship of how Broadways shows are constructed and why successful musicals work and unsuccessful ones don’t.  It is one of the best books I’ve read in a while, and if you are at all interested in musical theater, I recommend you check it out! I’m also reading two other books right now: Fostering Resilient Learners which I’m reading for my school that is all about teaching kids who have experienced trauma, and Finding Joy in Teaching Students of Diverse Backgrounds by the amazing Sonia Nieto. Talking about these two books after I finish them will probably pop up in future posts. Dr. Nieto deserves a post all to herself.

Oh yeah, and the other thing I did was start writing again. I love to write. I miss writing and through completing my Master’s Thesis last year I rediscovered that not only do I love it, but I’m pretty good at it. I also gave a guest presentation a couple of weeks ago for a graduate class at the university from which I received my Master's degree, and I had a blast and remembered that I really love helping other music teachers. So I came to the conclusion that I need to write regularly for myself, for my own sanity and to reflect on my own practice, and also I think some of my topics and reflections might help others in my profession. And they may not, I have no idea, but either way I want to start writing regularly again for my own growth and enjoyment. 

So I know that we need to take time to slow down in the summer, and that it is probably not healthy to jump straight into working on next year. But I have also learned that too much free time on my hands drives me crazy, and I don’t think I need to apologize for liking the school year more than the summer. Nevertheless, this stage I’m in now where I’m absorbing new ideas and getting excited and planning for the future is awesome, and I’m having a great time. I think there’s something to be said for letting summer be a time for renewal rather than just a time to hang out and do nothing, and that this idea of renewal can look very different for each teacher depending on who we are and what feeds us. But I think no matter, what, we as teachers need to make sure we have a purpose during the summer months. That purpose is probably not the same purpose we have during the school year, and it will probably change from summer to summer, life stage to life stage, but it needs to be there. And that's what I learned over summer vacation!

Comments

Unknown said…
Reading about your summer depression is like reading a page out of my own journal! I have felt this every summer, but it was at its worst the summer after I finished my masters. I graduated, kids graduated, school was over, and I found myself instantly depressed. I remember I cried when driving home that day. I felt completely useless and realized for the first time that my job gave me an outlet which made me feel needed. It was hard to come home to this gaping space where no one needed me to "show up" for 10 weeks. So even if you and I are the only ones who have experienced this, trust that I understand what you are going through and struggle with these feelings each May as the school year wraps up. Thank you for writing this and making me feel like I'm not alone in having these mixed feelings about summer.
July 14, 2017 at 2:38 PM
PD said…
Deanna, I'm glad that the post made you feel like you're not alone! It's a weird thing to feel because it's almost like there's this expectation that we're supposed to love having all this time off as teachers and missing school makes you sound like a crazy person! It is hard to be needed so intensely for so much of the year and then to have like you said "this gaping space" that you have trouble filling. Hang in there Deanna, I appreciate hearing from you!
July 15, 2017 at 2:11 PM
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