Post Final Depression… It’s Over?

For weeks I spent my time cramming for finals and counting down until it would all be over. At least for a short break it would be over. I was so tired of school and books and tests that I was excited about the end of the semester. I had the dates marked on all of my calendars and in my cell phone. I would be free to get up a little bit later and not have to spend every free moment worrying about whether or not I had to get a paper done in time or not. It was like coming to the end of a long hike through the woods and seeing the sunshine at the end. Yes!

I was making plans on what I would do between the end of Spring semester and Summer semester. I didn’t want to waste the precious time granted to me on just waiting for classes to start again or just working like I did through Spring Break. So I planned and I studied and I counted down.

Then came that last final. Some how I made it through the stressing and the fears and the panic to the very last question of the very last final which I gladly handed into my professor, which was followed by a very free me quickly exiting the building with a sigh of relief. I did it!

The only other thing I had to worry about at that point was to await the grades that would be posted later. The waiting was hard but I would get through it because I was free. I gathered all my “evil” books and prepared to turn them in. The next day I sold back what books they wanted to buy and walked out of the building for the last time in the Spring semester with my two lonely unwanted books left in my back pack and a little bit of pocket change. I ran an errand or two and then went home.

Once I got settled in and looked at Mark, my boyfriend, it hit me… it was done. I was out of school for a little while. I suddenly felt very empty. I felt as empty as my backpack with just the information that my classes had left behind left inside. The craziness that was school was a big part of my every day life anymore and without it things just felt weird. I felt weird. There was this sudden let down. All my classmates were excited about the break from class and suddenly all I could think about was getting started back in with the summer session because this break was going to be the death of me.

Within a few days of no school, I was stir crazy and bored. Finally, I was able to get started on setting up for my Summer semester classes. I’m only going part time and hope it won’t be too boring for me but without school I seem to fall into a sort of depression anymore. It’s horrible. I know so many that dread school and dread homework, writing papers, test taking, and all that goes with it but for me it is almost like a drug. It is a stimulant. I sit here at almost 2am writing this because since school let out, I have gone from getting almost no sleep to getting just about none! I have gone right back into borderline insomnia. I think its time for a new twelve step program. It seems I am going through withdrawals and not handling them very well. But then again, it may be that I am the only one crazy enough to be in this particular boat on this rocky sea we call life.