Letters from Kathleen #2: Balance Your Life

Once upon a time there was a young-ish theatre teacher who wanted to be the best director who ever lived. She wanted this more than anything. She wanted it so badly that she was willing to leave her three children at home (since she was a single-mom and had no one to watch them) while she stayed at school until after 10 pm perfecting her plays. They weren’t too little after all; they could make dinner and do their homework, and she had checked in with them. They were fine, and her theatre program was getting better and better with every late rehearsal.

When she returned home, her children were happily watching a movie and playing with the dog. Everything was fine. They had made dinner, supposedly done homework, and she felt so accomplished for making everything happen as it should. She was so exhausted, though, that it was hard to get them to bed and ready for school the next day, so she did have some guilt about that. But she knew they understood–her students needed her.

When Spring Break rolled around, the kids were bored, and they wanted to go do fun things like their friends did. There were two problems with this: 1. She had no money, as a single-mom teacher, to take them anywhere fun. 2. She had agreed to sew all the costumes for the play from scratch (just as soon as she remembered how to thread the sewing machine). So, she rented movies and binge-able TV shows while she sewed. The kids weren’t into any trouble, and they had their video games and their friends. Everything was fine. She was exhausted. And sick maybe. But there was no time for that. She had costumes to sew. The kids understood.

By the end of the school year, she felt like a basket case, but man was her program at school rocking! Her play advanced one level at competition, and her actors were getting so good! A couple of them were getting offers from major colleges and universities! She felt so guilty that she could not take them to the summer national conference, but she didn’t think she should do that, even though she really considered it. She was starting to earnestly worry about her kids. Their principal was calling all the time, wondering why they were getting in trouble at school and such, but kids would be kids, right? They would outgrow it. She would do something fun with them during the summer. Everything was fine.

This type of schedule continued over several years until finally, the young-ish teacher was sitting in a courtroom with one of her sons. He had been getting involved with the wrong crowd and had gotten caught with some drugs. His brother was following suit. The situation at home was growing dire, and the teacher was becoming consumed with hopelessness. What could she do? What should she do? She had to work, right? How could she ever balance all of this? And what was happening with her kids? All of those late rehearsals started to flood back. All of the hours spent at the sewing machine. Grading papers. All of the exhaustion smothered her. Overtook her. And it was too late. The damage was done.

The next several years were like a waking nightmare. Like a living hell. It seemed like it would never end, and she had no idea how to fix it all. How could she go back and make all of this right? The truth was, maybe she couldn’t. I mean, maybe even if she hadn’t spent so much time at school, her kids would still have made poor choices. But she would never know. She had decided during those years to make her teaching job the most important thing. She had been obsessed with it, and her children suffered as a result. There was no changing that. Now, she had to deal with the fallout. And it lasted a decade. Maybe more…the happily ever after part of the story is still being written.

The end

Pretty grim, right? I’m guessing you can tell that wasn’t a made-up story. No, it was a very brief summary of how I spent my first years teaching and how I truly failed at balancing my life.

If you were to talk with my kids today, they would come to my defense and tell me to stop being so hard on myself. They respected the hell out of how hard I worked and how I pulled us out of poverty. But it still haunts me. I still wake up at 3 am and wish I could go back and fix it all. But I can’t. I’ve had some great heart-to-hearts with my kids who are now grown adults going about their lives, and I have loving, wonderful relationships with all three of them, and I’m so grateful for that. But it’s taken some real work to get here. We’ve had to really put some pieces back together, and I just look at back at the real and profound mistakes I made by not balancing my life.

The decision I made over a decade ago to make my job the most important aspect of my life is the same decision I see teachers making all the time. And it is the reason I really talked to Kathleen about finding balance from the beginning of her career--thus, her note:

Here is a conversation I had with a math teacher from my school while we were waiting in the “get your testing box” line:

Math teacher: I went to bed earlier last night than I normally do.

Me: And what time is that?

Math teacher: Oh, about midnight?

Me: What? What time do you normally go to bed?

Math teacher: 1 or 2 usually.

Me: (shocked and in awe) Please tell me you aren’t working that late.

Math teacher: Well, yeah. I just have these students, you know, who need so much help. They’re missing so much class, and I just can’t let them get behind. It’s already been so hard on them with COVID and everything.

Me: Well, you are a better person than I am, because I am in bed by 9 pm every night, and if I’m not it’s because my husband and I are trying to sneak in one more episode of some show.

Other teacher (I should probably know what subject he teaches and what his name is): Did you just say you go to bed at 9 every night?

Me: Yeah. Do you go to bed late too?

Other teacher: Yeah. How do you do that? I mean, I can’t….(so shocked he can’t finish his sentence)

Me: Well, I’m an empty nester so it’s easier. I don’t have kids’ homework to help with or baths or difficult bedtimes.

Other teacher and Math teacher: Yeah, I don’t have kids either. (still in shock and awe)

Me: I just don’t know why teachers feel bad about taking time for ourselves. I put in a minimum of a 10-hour day every day. That’s enough. Sometimes it’s more like 12. If I can’t get my job done in that amount of time, I need to look at my day and do it differently.

(Both teachers looked at me like I had said the most monumental thing)

Y’all, isn’t that crazy? Teachers will show up early, leave late, and take work home. Let me be clear. I’m not calling for a teacher pity party; I’m calling for teachers to knock it off! What are we doing? I know how the pressure is and the amount of stuff we are supposed to get done, and I really do try to do it all. I promise, I do. I make lists and schedules, and I work very hard. My husband and I don’t really text or call each other during the day; we both work while we’re at work. But when we get home, we are home. We are focusing on each other and on our adult kids and our families and usually on our love for wine and just not working. Sometimes in the mix of all that there is a task or two that I don’t complete. I’ll get to it, or maybe I won’t. Here’s what I know, regardless of whether or not I am doing everything that everyone wants me to do for my job as a teacher, my students’ lives are profoundly impacted when they come through my department. That has been a constant as long as I’ve been teaching. Even if I didn’t go to every extra training, and yes, even if I took a few personal days and let myself sleep at night.

To be fair, I’m writing this after spending two extra weeks at school running a camp, and this afternoon I still have meetings. I’ll spend three days this week at a conference, and I’ll spend most of July writing material for next year. So…it’s not like I don’t struggle with this. I do. But the word is balance. How can I work hard and make a real impact while still taking care of myself?

Here are some practical tips I’ve found:

1. Figure out how much sleep you need and make sure you get it. This makes all the difference, and it doesn’t happen only if there’s time. Make this a priority.

2. Stop answering email once you get home. You are not on call. Create some space in your life for…your life.

3. Don’t give students your cell phone number (or really parents for that matter). There are parents who have my cell number, and thankfully, they don’t abuse it. Make sure you are not available 24/7.

4. Be present with the people in your life.Sometimes I really have to work at this. My job can swirl around my brain in a way that is consuming, especially during a show. I try not to work on it when I get home. If I need to do some extra work, I will stay at school a little longer, but when I get home–I let myself be at home.

5. Use your conference period. I have a habit of making a to-do list as my first task when I get to school. I make sure these are tasks I can actually complete during the day–not big idea things that won’t be accomplished for a long time. I will try to take that big idea and find a specific part of it that I can work on and complete on this day. During my conference period, I work. I try not to spend that time chit-chatting or wasting time. I use every second of it if I can help it. Certainly, there are days when that gets interrupted, but I make it my mission to really use all of that time.

6. Eat lunch.And I don’t mean eat while you’re working. For me, lunch lasts about 25 minutes. If I can’t take 25 minutes to refuel and renew, I need to rework my day.

7. Don’t play the “Who works the hardest” game. I have definitely mentioned this before, but I see this so often that I have to revisit it. Figure out what time you need to be at work and what time you need to leave to have a full and productive day. (You will never get everything done.) This should not be the time that superstar-brownie-making teacher gets to work or the time that you heard another teacher talking about in the “get your test box” line. You control this. What time do you need to arrive and leave? Do not worry about what anyone else thinks.

8. Keep the big picture in mind. I can remember in the not-so-distant past that I have spent hours making seating charts, laminating posters (I should do a whole post about the laminator. It would be a comedic break–I HATE the laminator!!), and other tasks that basically became meaningless once the kids actually got there. When you find yourself overwhelmed by those types of tasks that seem cute but take hours, days, and weeks–reevaluate. How can I do this more simply? Do I even need to do it at all?

9. Fill your cup. Everyday. Find things that fill your life with joy. You don’t have to wait until summer comes. My list looks something like this: Reading young adult fiction, reading plays, cooking, yoga, talking to a friend, wine, coffee, music ( I have so many playlists for different moods), The Office Ladies podcast. I can refill everyday with these things. What’s on your list?

10. Put yourself on your priority list. It’s the analogy of the person on the plane who must put on the oxygen mask before helping someone else. It’s cliche now, I guess, but it’s true. If you don’t take care of yourself, then no one will.

This is a process I’m still working through, and as I shared, my tendency is to work way too much, but I've made some real progress in this area. I hope that my story can shed some light on the ways you might be leaving yourself off the list. I hope you can learn faster than I did to find that balance.