summer Vacation in April--epilogue

Remember my second-to-last blog entry?--You know, the one about finishing my master's degree and facing the prospect of an additional field of study? Well, here's what happened with that.

The good news is that I have a job next year, and it looks like it will be a full-time one. Of course, who knows what we'll have to do the year after that to stay afloat, but one thing at a time. I am incredibly grateful to God and my school community for doing what they can to keep music in their children's curriculum (and to keep me gainfully employed in facilitating that curriculum).

The bad news, and the impetus behind most of this post, is that I have a bad case of the summertime blues. Summertime blues?! you say, incredulously. Isn't that some sort of oxymoron? you ask. Yes. Yes it is. Nevertheless, I, who, as a teacher, have probably one of the best work schedules ever (it sort of makes up for having one of the lowest paying jobs that require college education--and perpetual college education at that) I, even I, am officially complaining about having a summer vacation. Actually, it would be more descriptive to say that the prospect of two months of unstructured self-indulgence has me feeling as discouraged and lethargic as a person might feel who is facing a recurring two month diet that consists exclusively of chocolate cake. I know that just because the time is unstructured, that it doesn't have to be squandered in self-indulgence. There's no rule that says I have to sleep in every day and spend all my time watching tv shows, reading books, and hopping from friend's house to friend's house in a perpetual orbit around my own empty apartment. I know all that very well. The problem is that right now, I have little hope that it will amount to much else. But I simply can not bear the thought of coming to the other side of this time, this precious gift I have that may never come again, with nothing to look back on but a wasteland of botched resolutions and mental escapes. I can not. I will not. Heaven help me, I've got to find some way to spend my life that truly matters!

(Bet you didn't expect all this drama when you started reading today. Well, sometimes that's all I've got.)

I hate being weak. But you know, I was not meant to stay that way. I was meant to grow, and I am growing, and I will continue to grow, God-willing, until the day I die (and maybe even after that).

So here's to a summer that's unlike any other. Bring it on.