Pressure

So Wednesday was one of those days they tell you you’ll remember as a first year teacher. Not the good kind of day, though. The kind that is so chaotic and stressful, that all you want to do is cry. In front of people, alone, it really doesn’t matter as long as you get to unload your tears.

The moment that day that made me feel like I just needed to head home, came in the form of my friends cautioning me about everything I’ve taken on (in addition to being a first year teacher): Assistant Soccer coach in the fall, helping at youth group on Wednesdays, Assistant Softball coach, Prom committee, piloting a student ambassador service club (just starting this), and offering to help with the community soccer league on the weekends this spring.

Now that I list all of these things out, it does seem like it’s a lot. BUT…like I told them, I know myself pretty well, and I have always performed better under a lot of pressure. If the pressure isn’t there, I just don’t see why I need to do it NOW. How about tomorrow? I am a procrastinator, if I can be.

After Wednesday, I just decided to do some soul searching and some relaxing. I had a massage on Friday, got my hair fixed right after, and spent the weekend just relaxing with friends. I went running. I went to church and then got ice cream. I now sit here writing. All of these are things that make me HAPPY, genuinely.

Underneath all of these good things, however, I still feel that nagging. The gnawing and churning of nerves and anxiety that I have grown accustomed to on Sunday evenings. Monday is right around the corner, and she is unfriendly and unyielding. I think Mondays are so nerve wracking because it represents another week of non-stop-fill-in-the-blank. Softball, soccer, meetings, lesson planning, grading, oh… and sleeping somewhere in there.

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This past week, we learned about the Great Depression, and we listened as FDR addressed a hurting nation in 1933. We were listening to the speech as background and context building for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which we stared this past week. My kids got a kick out of the fact that I really believed they didn’t have recording devices back when FDR delivered his inaugural address. Blonde moment.

Anyway, in his speech, FDR speaks about fear. He knew his countrymen were afraid, and that many were living in a realm even beyond fear. He mentions those facing the “grim problem of existence,” which made me stop and consider this life I find myself living.

I complain too much, I whine occasionally, and (God Bless my future husband) I cry at the drop of a pen. I like the non-stop life, but I will never admit it in the moments I feel most overwhelmed. I’ve heard people say: “pace yourself,” “don’t bite off more than you can chew,” and my all time favorite “do one thing really well rather than ten things poorly” – or something like that. However, I have never been faced with an “existence” that would be considered a “grim problem,” so I guess I have that going for me.

So on Wednesday, when my coworker and friend asked me what I would do if the school burnt down tomorrow, I really did some soul searching. Here is what I know to be true about my life at the moment – all of the positives listed one by one:

1. I love my students more than I have loved almost anything in life. (My family and friends are also at the top of this “love list.”)
2. Speaking of family and friends, I don’t know where I would be without my new friends that I’ve made this year. Goodness, how lucky am I?
3. I like coaching, even if I am more of a cheerleader than First Base Coach.
4. I am OBSESSED with my church and the youth group on Wednesday nights.
5. I go to bed exhausted, but in the morning, even if I’m grumpy, I am still happy with my decision to be here.
6. I don’t know where I will be in 5 years, and I’m trying to be okay with it.
7. I am proud of the accomplishments of my students, my friends, and myself.
8. If the school burnt down, I would be among a slew of other faculty members and community members in the burning rubble, trying desperately to make sense of this tragedy. I would be in the middle of the ashes reeling under the weight of disappointment and anxiety. I would want to be there as the new walls were lifted, and I would be willing and ready to help rebuild to the best of my abilities, for as long as I live in this community. I would recognize that sometimes you have to burn the old things to the ground to make room for something bigger and better. As C.S. Lewis once said, “there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

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For now, I’ m trying not to complain so much. I’m taking every day in stride, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to summer break. In my most irritable and restless moments the past week, when I felt overwhelmed, I found myself considering FDR’s words all those years ago, and I am happy to say they still resonate and bring comfort, at least to this naïve and overachieving first year teacher…

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure, as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

I am trying  to choose to advance, not retreat; “frankly and boldly”…and maybe a tad bit idiotically at times.