Filling Up the Days

From my house in small-town Maine, you can walk to Bailey’s Apple Orchard about half a mile down the street, and Varney’s gas station a little over half a mile up the street in the opposite direction. In about five minutes, you can drive from my house to St. Denis Church, Whitefield Elementary School, and the Windsor Fair. My nearest friend and the grocery store are in Augusta, a fifteen-minute drive away. Most of the other people and places I that want to get to, like the movie theater are about 12 miles away.

Whenever someone offers to meet me at the mall, or go out to eat, or get together at someone’s house, my first thoughts are parking, lane changing, merging onto the highway, driving in reverse, and navigating rotaries. Even though I’ve had my license for four years, I still haven’t gotten used to operating a vehicle. The only time I like driving is at night. In Augusta, most of the traffic (and by traffic I mean Maine quasi-traffic) has leaked out of the city (and by city I mean medium-sized town) by about 7:30, and that’s when I feel comfortable enough to relax my grip on the steering wheel and turn on the radio. During the day, I drive like an old lady with cataracts. Except that I really don’t because I’ve never been in an accident or close to an accident. I just think that I suck at driving, so I avoid it when I can.

With an isolated house and an aversion to escaping from it before 7:30, I have mastered the art of daytime solitude over school vacations. For those of you who are also two weeks in to winter break, and suffering from boredom/loneliness (even if you live in town and don’t mind driving), here is my advice: make a list and stay busy. Sleeping, watching tv, and going on Facebook will only get you so far, and they are an easy way to waste a week’s worth of time, so come up with an agenda of stuff you want to accomplish. Don’t write yourself a list of chores. Write yourself a dream list of everything you want to do to have a relaxing and productive week. Here is mine:

Work on blog

Knit

Spend time outside every day

Read book assigned for my new job next semester

Study Spanish flashcards to get ahead on Chapter 6

Buy music with itunes gift cards

Watch Bride of Frankenstein

Revive dead orchid plant

Work on logo for spring environmental project

I also have stuff that I don’t put on my list, but I do every day to fill up the time that I don’t have activities planned for myself, like helping to cook dinner, refilling the woodstove, and getting the mail. And, okay, it seems kind of stupid to have to make up little “jobs” to stay busy, but it does work. I never watch tv during the day, and I rarely find myself sitting on the couch without anything to do. When I think of new things that I want to accomplish, I add them to my list, and when I finish things I scribble them out. At the end of vacation, it’s rewarding to look over my crossed-out-and-written-on-in-four-varieties-of-pen-and-pencil scrap of paper, before throwing it in recycling. I admit, if anything about me is reminiscent of an old lady with cataracts, it’s probably more my obsessive list making and activity planning than my driving skills, but this is what gets me through vacations, so I’m sticking with it!