Confessions of a Busy Woman

Confessions of a Busy Woman

Ok, here goes…

I’m a wife.

I’m the mother of an adult son, who is moving to Mississippi in a few days.

I’m the mother of a daughter finishing her junior year, beginning her first job, and getting ready to fill out college applications.

I’m teaching her to drive (Lord, help me)

I work full time as a special education teacher, working across a very wide range of disabilities. For those in the know, I am CT, RR, 15:1 content specialist. With 6 contact periods.

I give up my planning periods to cover other teacher’s classes.

I coach Cross Country.

I’m a graduate student working on my second Master’s Degree

I teach summer school

I pick up hours in our ASAP (After School Alternative Program).
I have a dog

I bake from scratch

I build things.

I’m an ultrarunner.

I train for ultra runs.

I travel to ultra runs.

I train others to run.

I am working on my NYS Coaching Certification

I have CE credits to maintain in Personal Training, Group Exercise, and Spinning

I’m working on my 200 hour yoga certification.

I have a yoga practice

I teach yoga.

I’m battling a chronic health condition that can affect my longevity.

I’m battling autoimmune issues that affect my daily life.

I’m learning calligraphy

I took over my mother’s finances.

I’m grieving my brother.

I’m working with my siblings to manage my mother’s health, welfare and home.

I’m a friend.  I make time to reach out.  Nothing makes me happier than making someone happy.

I am a busy woman.

And, the comment I hear above all others ...”You are always smiling!”

I hear it during races.  I hear it from students. I hear it from friends, who know that in the last few months, smiling has been hard to do.

At a recent yoga class, there was discussion of the glorification of being busy.  And, it hit home. I don’t glorify being busy. I find glory in being busy.

Life has thrown me a couple of curve balls in the last few months, and I was seeing the above list as a burden.   It was wearing me down. Challenging me, and winning the challenge. I was losing me.

I’m sad to say, that my smile had faded.

That same yoga class, made me realize that I love being busy.  I lay my head on my pillow each night with a true sense of accomplishment.   I fill my life. I am authentic to who I am and who I want to develop to be.  My lifestyle is styled by the way I envision life. I create events that make memories.   I choose to explore what interests me. I dive into adventures.

I watch my mother.  I see the woman I know raised and formed me.  I could pick her out of a lineup with 100% certainty.   She is the one who taught me to “never sit down before noon”.  However, inside, she is becoming a stranger, even to herself. She is no longer able to make memories.  New information simply has no where to latch on. She’s lost busy, and she fought like hell to keep it. She has only retained some old memories.  Those memories are true to her and strong enough to make it through the fog. Had she not lived with her own sense of adventure, I wonder what she would now hold on to…

So, with this blog, I herrold my busy woman battle cry.  I will lay down the burden label and rebrand the glory in the opportunities I have carved out in my life.   

And, when I tell myself...Onward Buttercup!  There are shenanigans, fuckery and memories up ahead...I’ll do so with a smile.