The grass is always greener

Phew - welcome to 2008. Finally time to take a little breather and reflect. Because I have been on two wildly different ends of the "pace of life" spectrum this year, it's something that's been prominently on my heart. For the first several months of the 2007 - 08 school year our life was crazy, non-stop, out of control. I often would answer the "how are you" question with "hanging in there" rather than the expected, requisite answer of "fine", simply because it summed up so much better my mental state. In truth, a more accurate summary of my mental state was "hanging by one rapidly-fraying thread". School, of course, was the main culprit of my harried existence. Teaching, planning, grading, committees/meetings, dealing with issues of all mental/social/emotional states with my students, etc. sucked up a lot of mental and physical energy. Add to that church involvement, family, and being pregnant to top it all off and it made for a crazy ride.

Enter one baby on Dec. 10 to bring life to a screeching halt. Never mind that he was two weeks early, giving birth puts the brakes on any and all "normal" aspects of life.

Which brings me here, to being the stay-at-home mom (for another 6 weeks anyway). What an opposite experience! I now can focus most of my time and energy on my own family rather than other people's. There is such relief in that. It has been a welcome reprieve, albeit challenging in a different sense as I struggle to find the balance between myself as "me" and myself as "mom".

But what I continue to explore, even with life chugging along at a very different pace than the first 5 months of the school year, is why we as the human race submit to the busyness that this life and the culture seems to lay out as the norm. I have talked with countless colleagues and friends about life as we know it and the primary reaction I gauge is one of dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with the sense that their life is a train running completely out of control; one which jumped the tracks of their expectations a long time back, and which they have no clue how to bring back under a reasonable rein. It's commonly held in our society that faster and quicker and more is better. But the reality seems to be that less is more. I have felt a drought in my soul from living this kind of life: one which never stops and where my brain must always be on to the next thing even when my body can't keep up. Who is benefiting from this lifestyle? Not my colleagues or students. They simply reap the affects of my shortened temper and mediocre work. Not my family. They get a sullen, exhausted wife and mother. Not my friends or extended family who often, I think, assume I've fallen off the face of the earth since I'm completely MIA. And not the Lord, who I claim to represent in all things. Who sees Christ when I'm ill-tempered, worn out, and frazzled? So I'm ready to say STOP.

To that end, I have decided to end my teaching career......again......for now. I am stretched too thin to fairly continue educating the children of western Chicago and 'burbs. I am also contemplating other "noble" obligations that maybe need to get kicked to the curb. I think that, all in all, I need to take this blessed time to revisit the mission that God may have prepared for me. To use this as a Sabbath space from activity and determine where my energies are best used, what passions I need to put into practice, what my mission is, if you will. So stay tuned for that......