Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Finding My Equilibrium

So, I have been an absentee blogger. I wish I could say that it was because I have been so busy that I haven't had time to sit down and write, or that I just didn't have much of anything interesting to write about, or I had major writer's block, or some other reason excuse that was semi-plausible. Nope, it was none of those things. It really boils down to one of my many neurosis.

This may sound weird to some of you, but I know that others out there might relate. I am one of those people who seem to be most productive when I have way too many things to do all at the same time. When I have extra time, I seem to only accomplish the bare minimum. Case in point is my life over the last two months or so.

In making our plans to have Theo go back to school, we decided that I would return to working full time.The last time I worked outside our home on a full time basis was when I was pregnant with our third child. He is now 10, so it has been a while. I was very fortunate to have worked from home teaching online high school classes for the last three years. This was a huge blessing in so many ways, financial being only a portion. Alas, it was only part time, and since we knew we would have graduate school expenses along with daily living, including the feeding of four ravenous teen and pre-teen boys, I needed to bring home the bacon. My plan was to find a nice little teaching job here in Amarillo at a high school near our home, and keep working at the online job in a scaled back capacity. To me, this seemed like the perfect plan. How could it fail?

Enter economic downturn.

Apparently, even though Texas is doing better than some states, and somewhat behind the curve in economic struggle, they have their fair share. When I started applying to school districts in Amarillo, I learned that the state as a whole was in a hiring freeze for all educators. Fantastic. We are talking budget cuts and deficits galore, same bad news all around I guess. Long story short, nothing panned out, and no teaching job for me.

 Strike two came a few weeks later. Around the end of the school year in June, the company I had been working for the last three years announced that we were being sold for the second time in four months. There were no guarantees for re-hire, so it was a wait and see until fall semester started. Once again, the cliff notes version, no job for me.

And so here I am, two and a half months have passed, and I am still looking for a job. I have been passing the time as a substitute teacher, but this does not always work well with one of my other neurosis, the one that says plan everything 12 years ahead of time. I don't love not knowing if I am working one day to the next. It just goes against my grain or whatever. Many days I have been here at home, the kids off at school, Theo off at school, and I am unsure what to do. I know, I know, there are tons of projects I could work on, volunteering I could do, outings I could make. Did you forget, the neurosis? I swear, on the days I do get to sub, I get ten times more stuff done around the house, with the kids, with my church calling, working out, you name it. What is up with that?

The bright side of all this meandering is my family. They all seem to be doing really well. Theo is doing awesome in school. He is loving his classes. He is studying like a champ, and rockin the grades. The kids seem to be adjusting well too. Granted, they are not the most enthusiastic sharers on the details of their ins and outs, but they look good. They act happy. We're going with it.

So here I am, sort of spinning my wheels, trying to find a new normal, searching for a new identity, floundering around a bit. I know I will get there eventually to a place where I can satisfy my need to be completing the enormous task list every day. I am working on the patience thing. I am working on productivity in the absence of time crunch. I am working on being okay with a sort of fuzzy blurry looking plan. It's all about growth, right.

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