Spring Broke

Last night, as I was unloading the dishwasher after our Easter feast of Welsh Rarebit and carrot soup, I sighed heavily. My wife, standing across the kitchen from me, asked why I was heaving around so many big breaths. It was Sunday night, and I knew that when morning came vacation would be over.
On any given weekend, I tend to tense up a little before the new week starts. I greet each Monday with a good deal of apprehension, in spite of the fact that I have lived through so very many of them. I can trace my earliest bouts of insomnia back to elementary school, when I used to lay awake catastrophizing the upcoming week. In spite of my best efforts, a certain amount of this anxiety has trickled down to my son, who now carries on that tradition, announcing after dinner yesterday that he was "dreading" going back to school.
We talked about it for a while, and we both agreed that it was important to get back on the metaphorical horse, even though the notion of an endless vacation held its own obvious appeal. Our problem, we decided, was that after a week of Spring Break we had finally achieved a comfort level with being away from our work. The question was no longer how we would fill those empty hours, but why we would want to. Sloth had made its presence felt in our lives and we liked it.
But we knew that it was too good to last. The thing that makes vacation such a treat is that it doesn't happen every day. After years of being a teacher, I still wonder how I used to manage with just two weeks a year along with the sundry state or federal holiday. I have adopted the rhythm of the school year, and when Easter slips back on the calendar, I feel that extra week. Then I start looking over the rise to Memorial Day.
Until then, I will be recalibrating for this next stretch, keeping in mind the words of David Addison: "Vacation never ends, it just changes location."