Sunday Nights

After a weekend away, Sunday nights can be especially disorienting. I have spent two days with family and friends, as a mother and lover, cooking and cleaning and hiking and having fun and ANYTHING BUT thinking about my students and the lessons ahead of us. When I am home for the weekend the transition can be more gradual, starting around 2 in the afternoon, padded by a few hours in my classroom listening to NPR and putting things in place. But when we go away, Sunday nights can be like diving into a cold stream. A shock to the system. We return inevitably later than planned, in the dark, transferring our kids from the car to their beds in the dark. Although I have worked for hours in the car and here and there throughout the festivities, I am still faced with a good three hours of planning, emails, parent contacts, and grading. No matter how much I enjoy what I do, I still get grumpy on Sunday nights. Perhaps it is an allergic reaction to the guilt I feel for not having worked more this weekend. For having forgotten my role as teacher for too long. For not having appreciated the precious moments off more fully.