These Days

It’s been forever! I’ve missed you all! I’ve also missed setting aside the time and space to consider and reflect and plan. Life has been packed to the very brim lately. Starting a school takes every waking moment. Then I’m still pushing to be a present parent. And of course I still want to sleep. So those three things have pretty much been the entirety of my existence for the past month and a half. 

I am eager for school to start so we can fall into a rhythm. I’m feeling the pull to start planning my time, so I can fit in all the things that are important to me on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. 

I’ll need to stay late at school two times a week (once for an afterschool Spanish class and once for professional development). Beyond that, I hope to be able to come home with Tate and Henry and play together before it’s time to start dinner. And I hope that our weekends are full of fun. I’d like to fit in a run at the lake once a week, and run on a treadmill in the teacher’s lounge during my lunch break twice a week. I’d like to get seven to eight hours of sleep each night. I’d like to have an interesting vacation on the horizon once or twice a year. And I’d like to have something social on the calendar at least once a month. And a date night with Matt at least once a month! 

A friend of mine once explained that highly demanding jobs make it nearly impossible to achieve “work-life balance.” Instead, she said I should think about what I need on a daily, monthly, weekly, and yearly basis and make sure I have time for those non-negotiable things. Those are like the big rocks, and everything else is sand that can fill in around those. 

I sit down to generate a new daily/weekly/monthly/yearly list every time something significant in my life changes. Whenever I do it, I find that I don’t need nearly as much as I think I do in order to feel like a balanced and whole person. 

I’m excited to work to fit in these things once school starts!