The long weekend

Although I have no personal experience with this particular Fall phenomenon, I'm told that school traditionally starts after Labor Day, and indeed I have some friends who are either preparing to start teaching or sending their kids to the bus stop this Tuesday next. My first impulse was envy, considering we've been back in the homework/permission slip/lunch box swing of things for weeks now as they've just summered on, but, for this weekend anyway, I think we may have the better end of the deal.

For all of us, I suppose, Labor Day marks the last days of summer, if not the end (kudos to anyone who actually pauses to recognize the workers), not that in these parts September still won't be hot. One of the last cookouts or ballgames or trips to the lake. If only we lived close to an actual beach, I'd be there, count on it, from sun-up to sundown. But if I had to head back to school the next day, I'd be a little antsy with the anticipation and the unknown, with a thousand and twelve things I'd need to get done before that Tuesday, and some version of that must be true for our friends who've had the extended break. That's no holiday, at least not to me.

But for us, it is, and I'm exceedingly grateful, even though there's no sand awaiting my toes. Transition is too gentle a word to describe the leap from summer to school year; it's zero to sixty in no seconds flat. So yes, I'm a little too glad to have this early holiday, that extra 24 hours that I hope seem to last much longer. As I sit here, trying to determine what feels different this Saturday, I realize it's the utter lack of tension. I've been behind for three weeks, and I still am, but this one bonus day gives me both some breathing room and some time to not think about it.
All weekends should be three days: a day to relax and recover, a day to enjoy, a day to maybe get something done. Perhaps I'll move to France. In the meantime, I hope all my friends appreciate this long weekend as much as I will, but you're really going to have to try.