This is for the collegiettes out there who don’t have a butler with a silver platter waiting on their beck and call each day. You go to bed with work not done and wake up the next day with a packed-tight schedule until you fall asleep with the undone work still undone. This is for you.
I get up on Monday mornings before the sun bursts over the horizon like the deadlines that loom overhead. There’s a plan in place before I have time to set one. Leave home by 7, get to class at 8, a couple hours to work on the homework I didn’t have time for the days prior, voice work at 10, muddle through literature at 11, toss a few bites of something semi-nutritional before dashing to class at 1 only to speed home to be at work in less time than it takes to get there, work all evening, eat a first substantial meal, and perhaps take a couple minutes to do some homework before crashing and do it all again for the next four days.
Saturdays, I have all day to catch up, but no time to get anything done. Sundays, I have church and catching up with the friends and family I haven’t had time to see in the past week.
Repeat week after week, and now finals are next week. After next week, I go full-time at Enliven Chiropractic. One full-time obligation of school, and another of family, church, and work, knock one out and another one comes in. Is there no rest for the weary?
Maybe this is you. Maybe you wake up every day and there are deadlines over your head before you have time to even take that first opening breath of sunlight into your cold bones. Maybe eating is an accomplishment each day, not that you want it to be that way. You love eating, but who has time. It’s unintentional weight control, watching your figure, you say. Your subconscious whispers the truth no time.
If only I had more time. If only I had one day. If only I could run away. If only I could … If only I … If only …
From one packed-schedule collegiette to another, I know how you feel. We’ll make it through this together. Stay strong. Get through finals however you can. You’re doing much better than you think you are. You’re okay.
In these posts, I generally make some space for suggestions, but I need to preach those to myself just as much as I’m telling them to you. So what should we do?
Make a list of all the things that have to be done and when they have to be done. Start at the beginning. Continue to meditate on that day of escape you have coming. Chances are, like me, your day your originally planned has already been filled with something else you have to do. That’s okay. Find another day. Do it.
No. Learn to say it and stick with it. It’s hard. Believe me, I said I wasn’t going to do music for a month at the beginning of this month, but what did I do on Sunday? I sang at church. So much for sticking with my no, right? We’ll learn together.
Keep breathing. This is not the end.
Full-time, overcommitted collegiettes? How do you keep it all together? Share with us! We can all learn how to manage our time, lives, and sanity.