Routine

Summertime leaves me with no routine. There is no plan; I can do what I want. Yet as the school year comes back again, I can taste routine coming back in my life once more. I can feel it; it is a ticking time bomb. In two weeks, I will be in school again, toiling away at useless homework assignments and listening to lectures about things that I will never use in real life, all of that precious writing time gone. 

Of course, routine hasn't been a total stranger for me this summer. I mean, I did go to two different sleepaway camp and I did go on vacation. I was required to wake up early in all of those places and be on a regimented schedule. But still, it's nothing to the brutality in school and at least I felt like I wanted to do it. 

Routines are a funny little thing, of course. Same thing from day in and day out without change. During the school year, it's up at 5:50 every day. Every day except Saturday and Sunday. They are so mundane and yet there is a glory in the little thing. Something to write about as a whole later on. But from the day to day rhythm of life, it makes me want to clench my teeth and scream. 

I'm not entirely sure I want to enter the rat race routine of my morning routine- waking up early at an insane hour to rush to get ready and make the bus. Not when my summer routine is just a non-routine and one I much prefer. Oh well. 

The thing about routine is that most routine are born out of practicality and need. And I know deep down in my heart of hearts, that there is a reason that I put up with the madness of school. There is a reason that I endure what I endure- to eventually deal with a better life ahead of me. There is a reason for the whole routine, of course, even if I can't always see it or appreciate it. 

Routine is also born because they produce order and structure. And the order is a necessary element in school, where hundreds of teachers are responsible for educating thousands of (mostly) unruly students. Structure and order are far less scarier and far more predictable than the little things that spontaneity brings into a life. Structure and order also leave little choice and creativity, which is another aim of public schools in America. 

Routines because they are easier. Switching things up takes effort and thought, which is something I don't want to do in the wee hours of the day. It's easier knowing that my routine then just waking up and starting to dress myself rather than eat my breakfast or some small change like that. I want to go to school knowing I have Class A rather than have it be totally up in the air. 

Of course, with the sudden countdown of school, I am forced to reconcile with this evil force of nature called routine and, being as I have not had one most of the summer, forced to think about it. . I will be forced to be the circle crammed into a triangular-shaped hole, shuttled off to school in the cattle car known as the school bus. Sure I'll meet my friends again and all that jazz but I'll be ultimately lose everything I know and love once more because unfortunately, school cannot accommodate my no-routine routine. I am staring across the river and I see only work-filled monotony on the other side. 

My summer stolen away