Years ago, I thought I thrived under the guise of busy-ness–
I overplanned my days, jam-packed my schedule, and found myself frantically running around everywhere because somehow, deep down, it oddly made me feel important. Needed. Productive. Accomplished.
Then I got into the whole idea of minimalism and simple living, and I started to cut back on commitments and learned to be okay with quiet nights at home, whole weeks with nothing extraneous on the calendar, and hours upon hours of unfilled time in which to proceed as my current heart desired.
Usually, that’s what my life looks like.
(Not that I’m letting myself just be lazy, of course—I’m only talking of outer commitments, not my drive to fulfill inner goals.)
But the end of the school year is different, and my current days at the school and my days (and nights) at home are packed with grading and last-minute planning and organizing and starting to move all my personal effects from the classroom back home.
Somebody once told me that teaching is not a job–it’s a lifestyle. What they meant was that you can never, ever leave your work at work–that you’re somehow doomed to always be grading papers before going to bed or trying to plan lessons in between feeding your kids and cleaning your house.
I’ll have you know, this is SO not true (at least, it doesn’t have to be true.) I have found that 90% of the time, when I’m being really intentional about my work, I can leave my work completely at work (other than my gripes and triumphs, of course, which I share nightly with my oh-so-patient hubby) and fully enjoy my time at home without a (work) care in the world.
But now?
Now is the 10% where I have no choice but to bring my work home, fit in grading during Raven’s naptimes, and feel guilty when I’m not 100% using my free time to grade (ahem, like…right now).
I had so many other things I wanted to blog about today, but all those other posts will require a dedicated stretch of time for choosing and editing photos, drafting out more organized thoughts, and trying to make it at least semi-interesting for anyone reading.
But for tonight, you just get this.
Only one week left of this to go…
