Flashback

Did you enjoy school?

If you didn’t, then I imagine you’ll understand the feeling I’m about to describe:

It’s Sunday afternoon, probably sometime between 4 and 5pm. You’ve had a fun day with your friends, or been chilling at home, or seen some good TV, or read a good book, and life feels pretty good. You’re relaxed, you’re content and you’re settled. Then you start to get a weird discomfort rising in your stomach. You can’t place it exactly, but it’s as if someone has started pouring bad stuff into your body and it’s forcing all those good feelings out without you being able to stop it. You take a few deep breaths and then you realise what has caused this turn-around. Somewhere in your mind a thought has burst your bubble. That thought, subliminally, has cut a path through your happiness and dragged you back to reality before you even realised it had happened. That thought was this: “Don’t forget you’re back at school tomorrow!”

And now all that lovely contentment has evaporated. All that relaxation has been replaced by tension and anxiety. The weekend is over, 12 hours before it should be. Your own mind has sabotaged your own enjoyment and now, psychologically, you’re already back in the classroom instead of taking advantage of your last half-day being free. The Spectre Of School is looming, and you’re firmly stuck in its shadow.

Remember that feeling?

It just came back to me, when I remembered I’m back at work tomorrow morning.

RC 4-8-19