write anything continued

Dear digital diary... how are you today?

I continue to monitor my mood, since going off my meds. Today, I have set my timer for 20 minutes and kept moving for all 20 minutes. I am looking forward to visits with my kids and seeing my grandson.

I've been thinking, and it seems to me that this is my first summer off in like, forever. Since I was a kid, anyway.

When I went to college, I was able to get my undergrad degree in three years, because I had taken Advanced Placement exams that gave me credit for ALL of freshmen language arts, and because I went to school through the summer as well. I worked- I had a campus job- and I did the acadmic thing.

Then, I worked 80+ hours a week for a year to pay for my study abroad at the acting conservatory in London. Well worth it- but it was a LOT of work.

Then the year abroad ended with a production in NYC and in San Francisco, then I was at my parents' home for a couple weeks before moving to Chicago and finding a job.

Once you are working, you don't get summer vacations. I feel that the school system is grotesquely unfair in setting up these expectations for leisurely summers which DO NOT HAPPEN in the grown-up world.

Then, I had kids. Once you have kids, whether you have an outside-the-home job or not, you do not have summers off.

Or nights. Or weekends.

By the time my kids had all left the nest, I had established my youth theater troupe and a tradition of a large cast summer show. So I was rehearsing all summer long.

Well.

I retired from my directorship this year. There were a couple of job possibilities here and there... but, long story considerably shortened, I have most of the summer "off".

And I am trying to figure out what to do with myself.