This morning was a typical grey, chilly September morning.  The sort of morning that, when I used to work, would make me hit the snooze button a few more times than normal.  Even though I knew that September was one of the most stressful times of the academic year, and that I would probably be feeling sick with stress if it was me getting out of bed this morning, I couldn't help feel a pang of jealousy while I watched my husband get ready for work.  He smelled of freshness and new starts after coming back from his shower, having washed away the remaining residues of last week.  This is also something I also associate with September, stemming from early childhood, and it has never really left.  September, cooler weather and rust coloured leaves means it’s time for a new pair of school shoes, a fresh new exercise book, a new class, another go at getting it right.  The year is already mapped out - timetabled and planned.  Everyone is ready and prepared to do it all again, but better this time round.  

September is very different for me this year.  It just feels like an extension of August; the same, but slightly breezier, less sunny.  My husband's week is already scheduled in his Blackberry planner, synced up to his laptop.  First client at 9am today, meeting at noon tomorrow.  He will know where he is supposed to be, and what he is supposed to be doing, for the whole week! What luxury, I thought whilst sipping my coffee (rather than downing it and ignoring the burn while running towards the front door, as was my pre-resignation habit).  Yes, I know: luxury is actually having the time to sit and enjoy a morning coffee.  And I do appreciate it, I really do.  So does my mouth.  But I caught myself again looking enviously at my husband slipping on his shiny black work shoes, and I imagined the lovely clip-clop sound they would make on the slightly frosty driveway outside.  Memories of new shoes and fresh starts flooded my mind again.  I don't need a new pair of shoes this year.  No need to tell my Blackberry to remind me what I'm supposed to be doing today.

What am I doing today?  What should I do with all this time, now that it's not scheduled into neat little slots and divided up with the familiar ringing of a bell; predictable and certain.  The day ahead of me seemed white, stretched, like skin over the knuckle of a clenched fist.  What do you do when all your time becomes spare time?  How do you prioritise?  I thought of all the things I used to daydream about doing if I didn’t have to work.  One of my favourites was fanaticising about working my way through the tall pile of half-read then abandoned books whilst sitting in the red leather armchair by the front window, drinking endless cups of tea.  Why does that seem so self-indulgent and tinged with guilt now that I actually have the opportunity to do it?

Having been given the gift of time that so many of us crave for, I now realise that it also comes with a sense of responsibility to make the ‘right’ choice of what to do with it.  I feel like I need to make a decision on behalf of all the employed out there who also want to be in the fortunate position of not having to work.  I feel tremendous pressure not to make a bad choice and squander my time away.  I find myself thinking, “What would so and so do with his/her time?”  It seems that I miss the lack of responsibility over decisions on how to spend one’s time.  In my old profession, time was prescribed, contained.  Now it’s free-running, endless and terrifying.

 So, instead of enjoying this opportunity to work my way through the list of ‘things I have always wanted to do but have never had the time’, I find myself doing so out of duty, with a sense of guilt and self-doubt.  Then I write about how terrible it is on a blog, because blogging was one of the things on the list.  Oh dear.