After 10 weeks of my first year of teaching 5-12 band, we’ve had parent/teacher conferences and our first day off. After putzing around a bit this morning, and playing some fun drum stuff (see Tim Buell’s transcriptions), some reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows lulled me into a three hour nap.
I awoke from a dream of waiting to rehearse my high school band, who for some reason was preparing to play by gathering in the gym locker rooms. A mentor of mine had his band in the gym bleachers, waiting on mine to come out and rehearse and we were debating the best way to make things happen. As always in my dreams, there was no clarity of what was being communicated or sought. But, my off-day dreams are full of work related thoughts. I love my work, but have very little practice resting yet.
Usually I’m the one to jump on chances to take care of the house, check off menial tasks, and help us get ahead on cooking. Today, I haven’t felt that. I’m not used to this depth of fatigue. For the first time in my life, I feel honestly drained by my day-to-day work. For seven years of getting paid to earn degrees the pace of constant outpouring weighs differently. It’s much harder to see a personal task or ambition as an attainable and measured goal. I come home everyday ready to veg out. I’ve never been that way before, and would much rather not be.
I’m loving my work, but its seriously working me. So, I’m looking for the energy and the motivation and the vitality to balance life. I see a vision of me arriving home daily to eagerly greet my wife, help her with needed tasks, spend a half hour drumming or creating or catching up with a friend, and then proceeding to have a relaxed and unplanned evening with family (namely, my lovely wife). That would feel much more balanced than where I’ve been for the first part of this school year.
You do not have more swag than me. You need to update this too.
#swagon
Oh and the last couple of paragraphs are SAD!!!!!! 🙁