Many
years ago, I attended a birthday party where for entertainment a woman read our
fortunes. I stood in fascination as she described the lives and futures of
various friends and family members. I could barely wait for my turn.
The
woman did her card shuffle and looked at me with a sad smile. “You work,” she
said softly.
“Yes,”
I responded and waited for her to reveal some future travels or adventures as
she had for everyone else.
She
shook her head and glanced down at her cards again. “No. That’s all I see. You
work. You work all the time. There’s nothing else that I see.”
Tears
blinded my eyes as I moved off to the side for her to take the next person in
line. I rounded up my husband, son, and his friend and told them I wanted to
leave. I couldn’t get into the car fast enough. Sobs shook me the second I
closed the car’s door.
“What’s
wrong?” my husband asked.
“You
heard what that woman said,” my words drowned by tears. “She saw nothing but
work.”
That
casual observation by a party entertainer punched me in the gut because it
resounded with truth.
At
that time, I taught high school English. I slipped into my classroom an hour
early every morning and stayed almost as long most days. My evenings and
weekends involved chipping away at an endless mountain of essays, journals, and
projects that never dwindled no matter how many hours I graded. With the time
that remained to my day, I did house and yard work. Rarely did I do anything
just for pleasure.
Amazement
filled me if I heard about friends taking off for evenings or weekends with
“the girls.” How did they find the time? How could they simply leave their jobs
and households for a few days at the beach? Guilt over spending that much money
and time on myself would make the intended respite stressful for me. In my
mind, I’d fret over all the stuff I wasn’t getting done.
Over
the years, I don’t think I’ve learned how to play without donning a layer of
guilt like a second skin. For the last two days, I’ve had no substitute jobs
because the openings have been at high schools, middle schools, or schools that
are too far from my home. This year, I limited myself to only doing elementary
schools within a ten minute drive from my house. I grab jobs at the high school
campus that’s walking distance from my house, too. Yesterday, when nothing
opened up, I convinced myself that the budget hit wasn’t too bad. I changed out
of my work clothes and found my rattiest t-shirt and oldest pair of shorts. I
headed out to the back yard and did three hours of yard work. In other words, I
worked.
With
today off, it means a harder hit to my extra income. I almost talked myself
into taking a slot at a middle school where I could possibly have a totally
rotten day. I battled back and forth on the importance of the $78.65 I’ll net
VS the Middle School Madness of students in May. I decided to stay home for a
second day, but feel guilty about not taking that slot.
As
I sit at keyboard, my mind drifts to the hedges out front. My work ethic primly
points out, “You should use today to trim those bushes.”
Another
voice, distant and faint, echoes in my memory. “You work. You work.”
Maybe
today I’ll step away from my overdeveloped sense of responsibility and enjoy an
unexpected and unplanned day off—and do nothing at all.
Copyright 2019 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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