Where has all the leisure gone?

One of the reasons I started this journal was that summers of my childhood and youth were always filled with books, sleeping late, just enough romance, aimless bike rides in deserted parks, and hours that stretched into weeks of delicious ennui. It was the truest form of down time I have ever had and will ever have.

Truthfully I could have used a little more to do during the summer. The boredom could be deadly, leading to too much drinking or brooding, particularly when my college career was on the skids. Not only that, but what my fellow uptight parents and I now refer to as “lack of structure” set me back several years in settling on a career. When it came to finding jobs in high school and college, for instance, I had none of the trusty internships and summer jobs or volunteer work to embolden an employer to take a chance and hire me. While my comparatively well-connected friends landed jobs that inched them slowly into law firms or other professional work, my jobs at the yogurt stand in Boston and countless retail jobs did not make for an impressive resume.

But all of that aside, I wish that I could trust myself to provide my kids with some genuine down time as they get older. Doing nothing from time to time, or at least nothing that will result in money or a returned favor, is a valuable skill. It’s still as wonderful to have nothing to do on a hot sunny day as it was when I was a child. I’m going to start with fewer weekend social commitments. The rat race of endless social obligations is often more tiring than work. What I really want is to be able to have a little bit of that summer feeling available throughout the year, not just when my children are out of school and we’re all at loose ends to both relax and have quality time together. To be able to lie in bed and read a book for a couple of hours even though I have papers spilling off of every surface, piles of laundry, and freelance deadlines looming, might be like that.