balancing act

I like projects. I like constructing lists, figuring out the most appropriate order for tasks, and diving head first into the process of getting things done. The only problem? I don't like to pause, to come up for air, to stop before the job is completed.

This may be why my family steers clear of me on big clean day each weekend.

I find my particular approach to tasks to be quite effective in its single-mindedness. In the end, stuff gets done. I may love to laze about with a book in hand and blanket on body, but I also enjoy working hard to get to the finish line. I don't mind manual labor, as long as I get to reap the rewards in the end. (Ah yes, my inner 50s housewife sighs with simple joy at the sight of a shiny, clean kitchen floor.)

The biggest downside to this tendency is when a project comes along that doesn't necessarily have a clear finish line. A project that will last a long, long time. A project that isn't truly a 'project' at all, but actually a new day-to-day experience.

Yes, I'm talking about my return to teaching, once again. (Blah, blah, blah. But it's really all I got going on right now. See above for explanation of my one-track mind.)

The week before eighteen three and four year olds enter the classroom for the first time is filled with meetings, CPR and first aid training, and a whole helluva lot of cleaning and set up. Of my school's six classrooms, this will be the fourth that I'm in, in this my tenth school year on staff. (Discounting my four year sabbatical, of course.) My co-teacher this year is also moving from a different classroom, so we had the joyful experience this past week of discovering this new-to-us room, in all its glory. It seriously wasn't too bad, but any level of disorganization is something to be fixed in my book, and there was definitely a good share of accumulated clutter to be tackled.

There's still a lot of tackling to be done. Hence my uneasiness, because right now, I'm having a lot of trouble balancing my nature to just keep barreling along, Energizer-bunny style, with the obvious need to leave the school at the end of the day to be with my family. I'm having trouble slipping from teacher-on-a-mission mode back into Mommy mode. When I'm supposed to be enjoying the few hours with my children and husband that I'm now going to be allotted each day, my mind is back in the classroom, thinking about cabinets that are not yet cleaned out, observation booth shelves that are in disarray, and items that loom on the to do list. I want to simply spend every possible minute in that space getting it to the finish line, so that my mind can once again rest easy.

But it just doesn't work that way.

There is no finish line when you're a teacher, for each day brings something new, and there's always something still to do. One would think I'd have learned this lesson from, oh, the last eleven years of parenthood, huh? Just like I can never sit back at the end of a day and say, "Ah, my job here is done," in relation to being a mom, I know I cannot expect this in regards to my once-again-employment.

Even though I know this, it's still so very, very hard not to feel the desire to just keep working on this classroom space in the beginning of the year, until it's just perfect. Until every little checkbox is marked off. This space will be my home-away-from-home for the next 9.5 months, and I simply want it to be the best it can be.

More importantly, though, I've got to relearn how to switch between roles more smoothly, leaving my classroom mind at my desk, and slipping right back into Mommy Mode at the end of the day.

Balance beams were never my forte, but I'm determined to stay upright and make it across to the other side.


Not looking down,