Lady Gaga might be on the Edge of Glory these days, but I'm just straight up on edge. Since the school year officially kicked off last Tuesday, I've spent hours and hours preparing plans, making copies, anticipating questions, and fielding emails.
Sure, my weeknights have been fairly clear, and Kevin and I just spent a weekend hanging around the house for once. But for some reason, those days off haven't balanced out my anxiety over getting it all done at work.
In fact, I fell asleep last night playing out scenes in my head of this week's yearbook class (of which I'm the advisor); like a director envisioning a film, I plotted out the dialogue, the action, the edits and re-edits. All before the week even began.
Yikes.
However, I've at least, I think, figured out the problem. Here, let me rant briefly explain.
You see, I love a good to-do list because I'm totally Type-A.
I enjoy generating training plans for races and assembling inspiration for LBA's nursery.
I revel in preparing myself mentally before a big race or even for a Tuesday evening at the mall ("What stores do I need to visit?" "Should I do a loop on the upper level before heading to the first floor?" "What if J. Crew doesn't have the belt I want?")
The Problem: It isn't that I fear not getting it all done. I will. It's that I don't know how or just flat out forget to relax in between all of that planning and getting it done.
And then days like the dresser-pick-up day happen. Eek.
When I do find those rare magical moments of relaxation, they look something like this:
- Napping
- Hanging out with the hubs
- Blogging/reading blogs
- Eating
almost a whole bag of peanut butter M&Ms(ok, I really did that this weekend) - Catching up on the Cable World via Netflix
(source)
... I'm still playing out those scenes, planning to plan, and anticipating actions, reactions and consequences.
Balance is a concept I'm not quite my body or my brain understands.
My Goal: To relax and leave work at work: 1) physically (I do actually leave most of my grading for during school hours); and 2) mentally (to quit falling asleep to the soothing sometimes terrifying sounds of the forthcoming workweek).
To achieve this goal, I could:
A) Ask Runner's World to develop a SmartCoach app for life training.
B) Go the Derek Zoolander route and listen to Frankie Goes to Hollywood/be brainwashed by Mugatu:
3) Listen to some advice from people smarter and more relaxed than me.
How do you leave work at work? What are your tried-and-true ways to relax and enjoy the free moments in life?