Goal-oriented and task-driven. Now what?

The third day of an empty calendar and no list to check off tasks. The calendar and the list have been the organizers of my days, even on weekends. Typically I would review the list of tasks and prepare for the upcoming meetings, trainings, and collaborations while allowing myself a moment to linger over morning coffee. With a list usually longer than the day, the linger was neither lengthy nor luxurious, but that moment of composing myself was a needed routine.

In my "in-between" state, lingering seems to be self-indulgent, and the worry part of my brain seems to be shouting that I could do more to get to the next era. That part of the cerebrum doesn't seem to measure my next moves in time, but rather in urgency. The irony: now that the linger can be lengthy and luxurious, it doesn't seem to provide the same respite.

Learning to create meaningful goals and tasks that aren't driven specifically by a strategic career move will take me longer than the three days. And the to-do list might just have to fill up with household organization and the fulfillment of the promise I made to myself to purge all the "stuff" that lives in closets and crawl spaces and no longer serves me.

So today I "purged" some Thanksgiving leftovers, and I made some cranberry muffins. Hot and just the right sweet-savory balance, straight from the oven, and perfect with that coffee. The right bite and sip to start my day, and a forced lingering moment to contemplate what's next.

Muffins may be the best I can do on day three. So I'm celebrating a good bake.

 A 13-Year Hiatus

It may be coincidental that I stopped Blogging around the time that I started my role at an EdTech company. I tend to be 100% in all I do, and I willingly was "all-in" as I worked to support students and teachers in accelerating learning through great teaching while using the learning platforms developed by my company. 

The laser-focus on my chosen career meant that other passions peeled away. Music and theatre, my passions from childhood, took a backseat, and I haven't tread the boards or sung a note outside the shower or my Honda in all this time. I stopped running, literally running, and even removed the rack of race completion medals from my home. It was harder to fit in running around the work schedule and the job-related travel, so I became a Peloton groupie, better able to workout in the odd hours when the road to ride or run lived in my spare room on-demand.

And on Tuesday, my 13 year focus on career was dissolved in an instant. A casualty of a corporate "Reduction in Force," I found myself wondering what to do with my mind, my heart, and my body with a sudden wide-open calendar. Job searches in the modern age don't consist of knocking doors, but rather searching remotely, and it's easy to feel like I'm not doing enough. I truly hope that I'll find that next role that can be the one for me. But in the next iteration, I have learned to keep a piece of myself away from the "all-in" spirit.

Of course, on my first full day of unemployment I scoured the job boards, linked myself in, and reconnected with old colleagues who had moved on from the company. But I spent even more time on my teenage passion project on that first day with free time, and I put together an audition for a local musical theatre production. Whether I am cast or not, it felt good to fill my house with song, to assume a character and step outside of myself for awhile,  and to think about telling someone else's story.

And today, as an avid member of the Peloton community, I was able to top a personal record I had on the bike. My humble statistics aren't anything to shout from the mountaintop, but my health journey through migraine, TIA, heart surgery, and complete recovery had set me back, and I wasn't happy with the output numbers I achieved that were so much lower than before. 

But even more than topping that record, today in that "Sweat Steady" ride taught by the phenomenal Jess King, my spirit soared past my previous personal record. As I pedaled, huffed, puffed, and sweated through the class, I listened to her talk about authenticity, owning who you are, kindness, and self-worth. As if she spoke directly to me.

So, no more 13-year hiatus from anything that feels like ME being ME. I'll strive to be the best employee possible in my next company. It's in my DNA. But I have to promise to keep my writing,  sweaty, character-assuming, singing self around too. Because authenticity is integrity, and a RIF has taught me that being me is the best thing I can do.

My Gold Star for the day!

The Final Countdown...

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

Full day Thursday, half day Friday, and then another group of kids moves on. In the short, short time we have in the classroom, we can't reasonably expect that our lessons will dramatically change the students we teach. Change comes from within. It's also true that you can't make someone learn. Someone has to want to learn.

Reflecting on my first year back in the classroom after 8 years of talking about it, I conclude that there is so much we want to do, and even our greatest efforts feel inadequate. But a belief that I have long held has also re-proven itself. While my students may not recall the lesson I did on metaphor and simile, they may well forget the plural possessive pronoun warm-up we did, and it is doubtful they'll recall the word map strategy we used for vocabulary, there is a memory that endures. Even if we do not remember the content we learned, we will remember how we felt. So regardless of aptitude, I try to work on the attitude. To advance their literacy we need to include some levity. And I hope they do remember how I made them feel, because those are the memories that last.

Drenched

We left the house at 8:15 AM this morning. That is REALLY late to go out for a run in June. Hey, it's Florida! Even though it was a mere 80 degrees, the sun and humidity were intense. At first our pace suffered a little. We're a long way from the gains we were making on our minutes per mile before the surgery and brain events of last year. Somehow, though, once we were totally soaked in our own yuck, it didn't seem to matter anymore. Coming off the trail and back into the neighborhood we ran some intervals, but our per mile time shaved a minute off what we did yesterday, when it was earlier and milder. There's something to earning your sweat, imagining the ill feelings and the toxins departing through the cotton t-shirt and running shorts. What was even better was finishing with a splash. Hosing down by a couple of laps across the backyard pool is a great incentive to pick up the pace on the way home.

We'll go down together...

Hopefully...

The girl and I went to a Weight Watchers meeting, and though I found it hokey, filled with cliched sayings, redundancy, and "breaking news" information that I knew 20 years ago, it may be just what this household needs. The public scale may force honesty in new ways. We already max out our good "Activity Points" but clearly the input is too close to the output. It's a good lesson for both teen and mom, to be healthy and clean.

And thanks to some fabulous apps for our Droid smartphones, Dad is totally into it too. The apps calculate and maintains the food/points/activity diary electronically. Mr. Naysayer, refusing to attend a meeting, is the biggest cheerleader for the plan.

The trick will be to manage this in our fabulously over-scheduled lives. Meals are too often "on wheels" as we fly across town between activities. It will be harder to be clean with a bowl of warm bread and real butter in front of us as we await a carefully calculated salad in a restaurant. But three strong, we have a much better chance than trying to go it alone.

Thy Love and Thy Enemy

What a delicate dance it is, being the mother of a teenage daughter. We need our BFF moments. After all, I adore my girl, and I want our closeness to make her feel comfortable coming to me with anything she needs. I want her to feel like any questions, concerns, school issues, boy issues, and social issues are okay to discuss with me, that I won't yell, judge, or take any dramatic action. Being "cool" mom allows me to approach the inner sanctum, to be let in on the secrets that only her girlfriends might otherwise know. So this means sometimes checking my reaction at the door, maintaining a poker face, and being overly-meticulous and calculated in my responses.

Then there is the mother/daughter adversarial relationship. Mom draws the line. Daughter tries to cross it. Again and again. After all, the BFF wouldn't insist that the assignment be done before the texting, or that the laundry be picked up off the floor this minute or else. Sometimes being the mom means doing the opposite of the BFF, being a whistle-blowing drill Sergeant demanding she Be All She Can Be.

Either way, Mom of a teen is a 24/7/365 job. My waking hours and my short, troubled dreams are full of hopes and worries. I'd like to think that this will all change when she's grown, that adult-to-adult we can do just the BFF thing, that I will be able to quit the tough as nails, and I'll sleep without worry. Time and experience tell me that this is unlikely. We may have more laughs and fewer battles as the lines are redrawn over the next 10-15 years. Standing back and watching her suffer the consequences of her own decisions may require that I be tougher than any drill Sergeant.

Another Workers Comp Claim

This time it's my turn. In my triumphant return to the classroom I've taken on the full range of student-teacher germ transfer. Winter offered upper-respiratory and stomach bugs. My newest delight is the battle against the conjunctivitis that has invaded both of my eyes. Trying to slip in a quick trip to the doc-in-the-box during my planning period, I stopped in the front office to just let the powers that be know I'd be off campus for a bit. They told me to save my co-payment, that pinkeye was a covered workers compensation claim for teachers. Several forms in triplicate later, and I was on my way to Solantic, no cost to me. Sure enough, the yuck is what I thought it was. It was confirmed by a culture. I didn't know they cultured eyeballs these days! Last time I had pinkeye I think I called it in to the doc. The Solantic tech came at me with this little plastic scraper and I experienced an ocular pap smear. Note to self: washing hands, refraining from touching eyes...better than peeper peel. Ugh!