While on the phone with my mom a few nights ago, she asked me “You’re way less busy this semester though, right?”, and instinctively, I said “Well, yeah, of course”.
As extremely rewarding as it was, student teaching last semester really did take it out of me. Having one foot in the world of teaching and grading papers, and one foot in the world of my pink college house and my roommates was disorienting to say the least. So yes, I pushed myself to new limits last semester, this is true.Â
After I got off the phone with my mom, I decided to fill out my paper planner both monthly and weekly (mostly because I was excited to use my new fancy highlighters). I crafted a set up with my planner laid flat, Moodle and GroupMe both open for important dates, and of course, my highlighters spread out like a dang charcuterie board for stationery lovers in front of me.
Spoiler: the set up was quickly disturbed with highlighters strewn about, the pages of my planner flipping back and forth at mach speed, and my Moodle busted open into what felt like a million tabs.Â
I zoned out of the all consuming everythingness and flopped back onto my pillow. I stared at the ceiling for I don’t know how long. I noticed that it was cream colored, tinted with a splash of peach from my curtains. It’s slightly textured, and there’s a crack in the back left hand corner. I spend a lot of the time laying there wondering what it’s from. I’d like to think it’s from old age. Our house definitely is well loved with its sway back floors and warped walls.Â
While the minutes tick by as I’m really invested in the cause of this crack in my ceiling, I also spend that time breathing. The rhythmic in and out of my chest rising and falling subconsciously forces my eyes away from the crack (I settled on old age as the cause if you were dying to know… it gives me hope okay, sue me), and back down to my mess of planning.Â
I thought back to the phone call with my mom where I so confidently said that of course I was less busy this semester. I realized that I’m a lying liarson. There, I said it. You caught me…or rather, I guess I caught myself.Â
In no way do I want this to seem like a competition of who is busier. I don’t even want to compete against myself because competing means that I would just be accumulating things to do for reasons I am not passionate about. That is most definitely not the case.Â
It’s okay to be so busy and need to take that breath sometimes because you need air to be able to giggle, chat, and float around. My time is filled by prancing around in the Butler Basement, playing icebreakers in UMin, playing murder mystery games with my best friends, and furthering myself and my love of learning.Â
So, I took a breath, logged into Amazon, and placed one thing in my cart: a brand new pack of highlighters. If there is something that is going to stop me from doing ALL the things I love, it won’t be that I don’t have enough colors in my life to show it.