On Being Busy (and other anxieties of existing as an adult human)

Have you ever been so busy that you began a project and, just as you were getting started, found yourself completely sidetracked by the rest of the world around you, leaving your newborn task high and dry? Yeah, me too. That is the only explanation I have for why I haven't updated this blog in the past two months.

So. A few things.

This year has been a whirlwind of highs and lows. With every good day has come, what feels like, a hundred bad. Granted, it is November, and the start of the school year has always posed problematic for me: new students, new schedules, new behaviors, new struggles, new colleagues, new administrators, new fears, anxieties, and doubts. No time, no money (ironically), and no energy to do anything other than sit, stare, and panic.

However, now that we are steadily sliding into the second marking period and the cool of the autumn months, I figure that the present is a better time than ever to get myself back up on the proverbial horse and begin my writing adventures anew.

I felt that it would be a fitting topic to discuss the pure chaos of being busy with teaching while also trying to juggle the myriad other parts of a person's life: relationships, friends, family, pets, bills, side hustles, self-care, exercise (lol), and anything else that isn't coming to mind at the moment because I am feeling harried just thinking about all that I have to do over the next few days.

Believe me, I am no expert when it comes to time management or compartamentalizing my life to keep secure and founded boundaries between my work life and my personal. All too often I find that the exact opposite keeps happening: I'll be out with friends (when time allows) and will be inundated with Remind messages from students asking questions that they could have easily asked while I was standing in front of them during class time. I'll be interrupted during my lunch period by students requesting letters of recommendation, a place to get their work done, or just an ear to lend, all while I'm trying to schedule several specialist appointments or respond to parent emails in the 40 minutes I have free to do so while also scarfing down the freeze dried noodles I can just afford to eat while simultaneously trying to maintain some semblance of sanity by attempting to have a conversation with the fellow adults who are also free during the same time period. If any student work gets graded and input into the digital gradebook, it's a miracle.

This doesn't even skim the surface of the time I have set aside to work on the Yearbook of which I am advisor to, or the time it takes to moonlight as an Uber/Lyft driver and an aspiring freelance editor/copywriter so that I can pay my monthly bills and still have some scratch each month to have a well-stocked liquor cabinet and late night shame-spiral pizzas. Did I mention that, starting this December, I will be the winter cheer coach? Oh, and I am looking into an Educational Leadership masters program beginning in January 2020.

Damn, I'm tired just thinking about it.

How is it that there are nary enough hours in a day to get the basics completed? Seriously, do you know? Because I don't.

So, in an effort to make this blogging experiment successful, while also trying to ensure that my career as teacher doesn't eat up every waking moment of my day, I have posited setting aside several hours a week to honoring activities that make me happy. It's a rough punch list at the moment, but I've got time to work on it... I think?