I alluded in my post for Monday to the end-of-school-year burnout blues, but I’m telling you, I’ve got a really bad case. I feel like I am just stuck in a revolving door, buried under an avalanche of forms and “to-do items” from school, and pulled in a thousand directions. And it’s not even hockey season.
I am faced hourly by The Great Thought-Blocking Wall that disables all my power to think past the present maelstrom and plan and prepare for all the (inevitable) chaos ahead. Do you get like this?
I’ve been struggling to find the right metaphor for this disabling inability to see past the present moment. It’s not blinkers, because it’s not peripheral vision I’m missing. I just can’t cope with thinking about anything that is not an immediate and pressing need. I can’t think much less get ahead of the next pressing wave of demands, but, of course, by not thinking ahead and not planning ahead, EVERYTHING becomes an immediate and pressing need.
Since time is not likely to stand still any time soon, nor am I likely to find stillness in it, I’ve got to find a way to see clearly past this Sunday.
All suggestions welcome, short of carting myself off to the loony bin. That would take planning.
4 Mothers 
No suggestions, I’m afraid, but know that you’re not alone! See also this very humourous post on the same topic: http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/05/30/worst-end-of-school-year-mom-ever
D’oh! You had already posted that link. Clearly I am also suffering from end-of-year burnout. Having a child whose birthday is in June does _not_ help matters!
Ha! Tell me about it. My poor guy is in June, after his brothers in April and May. Mummy has birthday burnout, too!
My other child’s birthday is in December, buried in the pre-Christmas rush. ARGH!
Ah! Nancy, you can’t even do the half-birthday thing! It would mean two in June and two in December!
A suggestion: Don’t take the letters out and add them to The Pile of Doom (we all have one of those in the kitchen, right??). Leave them until you first put the kettle on when the kids aren’t around….. Then it’s move like your pants are on fire time! You have the time it takes for the kettle to boil (make sure it’s really full!) to complete the forms and stuff them back in the bag (for a burnt out teacher to deal with!) or bin them! I used to do a version of this back when we had all teaching correspondence via “pigeon holes”… Most teachers collected it all after morning meeting and took it to their classrooms. WHAT??? It would never come out of my classroom alive!! So I timetabled in a coffee break in the staff room and armed with a pen and a game show type mentality, I completed and re-posted them all before the kettle button flicked! (Ok… Some of them took a few coffee slurps to really finish!) Good luck lasting until the end of term!
Brilliant strategy!
I can totally relate to this…except I’m one of those teachers sending home forms! I consider it a good day if I’ve looked ahead to see what tomorrow will bring. I used to plan lessons and buy gifts weeks in advance…last weekend we bought a birthday party gift the night before! Shocker! (For me it actually is.) I’m suffering from the same condition as you right now, so if you get a diagnosis please let me know. And congrats on making the SavvyMom influential bloggers list!
Thanks!