A Delicate Balancing Act

I haven't blogged much since school started back in August. I haven't really been up for it. I can't believe how fast this semester just flew by. I have never been so happy to have a break from work....except for maybe after that first year at TSMS. That first year was ROUGH and I think, much like a mother that had a rough pregnancy and a painful delivery, I forgot all about the agony when things got better. Well, I sorta feel like I'm 9 months into my second pregnancy, overdue, and waiting around for the ball to drop so I can feel that elation again. (Sorry about the pregnancy metaphor......I know about half a dozen expectant mothers right now, including my sister who found out this week she is having a boy.)

But I digress. I am overwhelmed each day with overthinking my current situation. I don't feel like I am living - I feel like I'm survivng. There are some days that I feel so overwhelmed and feel like if one more person asks one more thing of me that I'm going to have a meltdown. I think if I felt that any part of my life was in order, then maybe I wouldn't feel like this. I feel like everything is in a state of disarray. I feel like I'm failing at the delicate balancing act.

I feel like I fall short most days at work. I feel like I have no business at a 3C middle school in a huge, competetive metroplex district. I feel a huge sense of loyality to the people I work with and to the students I teach, and when I feel as though I've let them down I feel mass amounts of guilt. I feel like I would be better served somewhere else than having them not be able to depend on me. I feel like if I can't be good at this job, then I don't want to do it. It is important to me NOT to let down the people that depend on me and this is in the back of my mind with every decesion I make. And then I ask myself if mentally torturing myself is worth the price of my sanity. So many other band directors tell me that teaching band is the best thing in the world, but I don't agree with them yet. Does that mean I need to find another career? Maybe I would enjoy it if I wasn't constantly feeling like a I wasn't good enough to do it. At the beginning of this school year I set some personal career goals for myself: to help as many kids as possible make it into the district and region bands, to be a better planner of my classroom time and to have a better idea of the goal for each class, and to make my little Symphonic Band actually sound like a band. We had more kids make the district and region bands than last year, but I feel like I still fell short of that goal. The other two I feel like I have achieved. So why do I still feel like failure? Admittedly, I know I'm my own worst critic and I like to think that I set a high standard for my professional self, so I should feel like I haven't failed at anything.....but I still do.

And then there is life outside of the bandhall. (Really, there is one?) Exactly. I feel like I've been slighly more social this year than in years past, but what happens when I go out with my band director friends for dinner? We talk about band. There are times when this is okay. There are times when this is not. I would perfer a social life that doesn't feel like a department meeting over drinks. It's hard, though, because it is often necessary, and then this is when I feel like I can't escape. Then I'm back to asking myself questions: Maybe I would like all of this social band banter if I didn't feel like a failure at my job....if I didn't feel so drained at 5:30 everyday. Not counting the last three days of school, I feel like I have poured more of my physical, emotional, and mental energy into teaching this year than any other. Which is probably why I have nothing left to give right now. It's why I'm taking the feeling of falling short so hard. And why I feel guilty for not being able to do everything: I haven't sent out Christmas cards, I haven't bought any Christmas presents, I haven't seen some of my friends in weeks, I don't have the energy to stay out with my friends when I do see them, and my house is a wreck. I feel like I'm my own support system, except that part ran out of energy back in October and there has been nothing to fill that system back up. The batteries have been drained and there has been nothing there to recharge them.

It's a vicious cycle: I give all of my mental, emotional, and physical strength and energy to my job and then there is nothing left for anything or anyone else. When I selfishly decide to set up some boundaries with work to let myself recharge, then I just feel guilty that I let someone at work down, and then I don't recharge because I feel guilty. I'm tormented by these thoughts everyday. My goal over this holiday break is to find some way to balance things out. I don't know how to complete everything I need to at work and not feel so drained that I have nothing left to give any other aspect of my life. It's not fair to me, it's not fair to the boys I work with, and it's not fair to anyone else in my life. 10 years ago I wasn't the cynical pessimist I am today. I'm tired of only surviving and would really like to reconcile the feelings of guilt I have from not being able to be everything and the fact that that I'm only one person that only has 24 hours in a day that needs to sleep 8 of those hours and is at work 10-11 hours (normally) and has about 5 hours a day left to figure it out.