teachers

I looked back at my post history to see the last time I did it.

March.

I guess it’s been a good run – 8 months – but it feels like yesterday.

I’m doing it again.

I’m letting my students dictate my happiness. 

Pretty dumb, really, when you think about it.

But when I’m doing it, I don’t think.

I just feel frustrated.

Defeated.

I may be doing it again, but I refuse to do it for long.

Last night, upon arriving home, I started with an intense kettlebell workout to some heavy metal. Bled the frustration.

I followed it with some yoga to encourage breathing and relaxation.

When I wobbled my way down the stairs (kettlebells, remember?), emerging from the safe cocoon of my office, I found a smoldering fire that Brock built before he left for the gym.

Happy sigh.

An hour with a book and a beverage and I was ready for human contact.

We watched a couple episodes of Life Below Zero, a show that profiles a few folks that live nature-centric lives around the arctic circle. I am fascinated by these people that choose to live a life that is so simple in some ways yet so incredibly challenging in others. I get the drive to pare down to the basics, to live with nature’s rhythms. I cannot wait to get back to the campground next week and downshift.

But those camping trips are little brushes with nature.

These folks go full force.

One guy went four and half months without seeing anyone.

That’s enough to give my introverted self the heebie jeebies.

Even so, the show was a great reminder of what is really important in life. And don’t tell my students, but a geometry test isn’t required for survival.

By the time the second show was winding down, so was I.

I was feeling less frustrated and able to look at the bigger picture of students as ready for a break as I am.

I was feeling less defeated and looking at the bigger picture where students always go through periods of ebb and flow every year. I know this – I’ve seen it enough times – but I still get caught up in it when it happens.

I was feeling less anxious after reworking my lesson plans to meet the students where they are right now rather than where I want them to be.

And I was feeling more peaceful as I replaced struggle with acceptance. Acceptance that the real struggle isn’t with the students, it’s with myself and wanting to control things that I cannot. Acceptance that one day is not indicative of an entire year. Acceptance that I can change my attitude.

Now, if only I can remember this again next March when the next ebb tends to appear:)