In a conversation yesterday with my colleague and friend, Lee McGlade, we were talking about balancing life and work. He told me about waiting for a parade to begin this fall and noticing the guy next to him was sitting there grading papers.
What he would have told the guy if it would have made any difference was, “you bring your life to your job, you don’t take your job to your life.”
This morning, for English 11, I played Coldplay’s song Twisted Logic. The song was to serve as a writing prompt, and students could take anything from the lyrics or write about the song as a whole, whatever suited them.
I told them I could write pages on this verse:
And the wheels just keep on turning
The drummers begin to drum
I don’t know which way I’m going
I don’t know what I’ve become
And boy could I. I believe I’m not much different from the guy at the parade. So while I’ve never taken papers to a parade, I will work a good ten hours again today. I am lately inundated with things to grade (and don’t even get me started on the value of grading anything), yearbook’s getting tense, I’m trying to get ready to be gone for the NCTE convention (yippee), and I just spent two days at Lakeland College at the Great Lakes Writers Festival. I took students on Friday, but Thursday was just for me. And while I enjoyed the me time, I paid a price upon my return to school. There’s so much to get caught up on, and there’s just not enough time.
Maybe that’s the whole point. There is NOT enough time. So as the drummers continue to drum, what have I become? I laugh at the idea of a life coach. I mean, who cannot manage her own life? I even have a stay-at-home husband who takes care of me and all but elminates my former household chores.
So here I write, and vent, and ponder. Only twenty minutes ago my oldest granddaughter, 2 1/2, ran to my arms to hug me. And after that I held her sister, only six months old, but smiling at me as if I were the most wonderful sight she ever saw. They brought me exuberant joy. I know there are people who live their entire lives without transcendent moments like that, so I am lucky. I am blessed.
Life is good. I know it is. I simply need to prioritize. I need to decide which way I’m going. I need to stop taking my job to my life.
5 responses so far ↓
1
Bill
// Nov 7, 2007 at 11:07 am
I’m right there with you Dawn. I struggle constantly with trying to balance life and work. My old department chair always said that “we should work to live, not live to work.” That’s always stuck with me.
Anyway, I’ll see you at NCTE. I get to go again. Yippeee..
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2
Dawn
// Nov 8, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Thanks for commiserating, Bill. Of course, one day is not just like the next, and we are granted reprieves from the tedious endlessness of assignments and grades. : )
See you in New York!
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3
Ryan Bretag
// Nov 18, 2007 at 10:32 am
Thanks Dawn for this post. I continue to struggle with “life” and what I want and what it means to think outside of “I”.
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4
mskranzusch
// Dec 9, 2007 at 10:53 am
Dawn,
Thank you for responding to my post. It is so great to hear from you. I continually check on you as well, although sometimes the life of a teacher overwhelms, and I find myself behind on relationships. I read this post on your Polliwog, and couldn’t help but think about how fitting it was – I’m teaching Greek mythology and The Odyssey for the first time, with not a lot of background knowledge myself, so life beyond planning is stretched thin.
I admire your honesty in front of the junior class. When reading about them, it reminds me that no matter how great a teacher you are, sometimes their motivation is out of our hands. You can’t change everyone. At best you can give them the skills to survive and, just like you did, inform them very honestly that not reinventing themselves would be a disservice to the world. Quite possibly some of them not only listened to you, but truly heard you and will consider listening more.
Remembering to refresh as my post said isn’t always easy – if you don’t, though, it is more difficult to find our place in life (referring to your Twisted Logic post – a song I may borrow for my lower-level writing class).
Tracy
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5
Jessica Brogley
// Dec 11, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Holy cats Dawn, this reminds me of my day today. I came home and unloaded on my husband at the dinner table – tears and all. My 2 year old daughter looked at me and said, “Mommy, no cry.” My mind whirls some days, today being one of them. I really struggle not letting my work take over my life and my mind sometimes. I think of an email a friend sent me today reminding me to remember that there could be worse things going on in my life (she’s a recent cancer survivor).
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