Balance

It isn’t until you’re feeling better that you realize how sick you actually were. The end of last week is nothing but a blur for me. I know I taught a class, I know I went to meetings, but otherwise . . . I can’t quite figure out how I did any of it. Feeling better today is as though I came out a fog. It felt great to be me again. 

Getting my life back into some kind of balance will be a challenge, and as soon as I’ve mastered it, the school year will end, and everything will change. Once I’ve adapted to that change, the next school year will begin, and I’ll start the process of trying to achieve balance all over again.

In the next couple of weeks, the optional classes I teach at the academy will start up again as well. I love all of the classes I teach. And if you were to ask me my very favorite, as with wine, it would be the last class (glass) I taught (drank). What I love most about the optional classes is that the cadets are relaxed and are there because they want to be. I get to interact with them on a completely different level. 

Not knowing whether these classes would ever take place again, not knowing if I would teach them if they did, feels the same as the analogy about not realizing how sick you were until you feel better. I didn’t realize how much I missed these classes, this type of interaction, until I started doing it again. 

If you had asked me at any point of my life if I wanted to be a teacher, I would’ve said no. It isn’t something I could imagine myself doing, until someone specifically asked me to. Now it seems like the most natural thing in the world. I love it. I cannot imagine anything—other than writing—being more fulfilling. 

And I suppose that is the key to finding balance in your life. If you are fortunate enough to be able to do the things you love, either with regularity, or . . . if you’re really, really fortunate . . . for a living, there is an inherent balance. Rather than feeling like work, the  hours spent that are defined as such, don’t feel as such. My days fly by, there may be a modicum of anxiety in the hour before a class starts, but once it does, I get lost in it completely. And afterwards, I’m not sure I can find the right word to say how I feel . . . complete, satisfied, fulfilled, validated, inspired, motivated . . . ready to take on the next thing with renewed energy and excitement. 

I personally know a handful of cadets at the academy at this point. Most that I knew have graduated. In the three classes I have taught to firsties, three of the four I know have been in them. It has been completely serendipitous that they have been. But that too, has felt so good. It has been great to see them, connect with them, talk with them. And as with the other examples I gave, I didn’t have any idea how much I missed them until I saw them again. 

I don’t know how long I’ll get to do this thing I love so much, but I’ll take every day as a gift. And rather than working at finding balance, maybe I’ll just let it happen.