This is what I know.

From a conversation with a colleague today:

this is what I know
that this process, although a pain in the ass, and really frustrating
is preparing you for your next position
you will be so incredibly ready to deal with whatever you are handed...because of some of the things that you had to deal with here
you are being prepared
you are getting an experience unlike anyone else, and when you move on
your resume will be effin ridiculous

. . .
My mantra prior to today: in one minute, I can change my attitude. And in that minute, I can change my entire day.

Mantra addendum: this is what I know.

Finding balance between work life and personal life is perhaps the greatest challenge of our field. The students never sleep, the work never stops, and catastrophe can happen at any minute. As such, we are expected to be able to respond with a moment's notice, and our personal lives often get placed on hold.

In my mid-20's quarter life crisis, I wonder, how much of this young life do I put on hold for the sake of the job? For the sake of others, be they students, colleagues, parents, partners? In the months leading up to my wedding, I was hit with a startling realization of my own mortality. These major life transitions tend to bring that out in most - we start to reflect on the life we've lived so far and you realize that twenty-five years have gone by and it barely feels like it, and now we're doing things like getting married and being all grown-up and such.

This week, I learned a friend of mine from college has died - she was 22. What's worse is she has been dead for two years, but because of shoddy police work and the failure to cross-check a missing persons report with an unidentified body, her family only just learned of their daughter's death last week. Two years of not knowing - unimaginable.

In these moments of mortality, we are reminded of ourselves, of our own purpose and goals. What do we seek to bring to this world? To do? To accomplish? How are we to be fulfilled? Have we been fulfilled? What's missing, and better yet, how do we fill in the pieces?

I have been struggling to find that ever elusive Balance, with obstacles at every turn. This week has been a challenge, from one of the hardest things I've had to do professionally (letting go of a student staff member) to a tragic personal loss, to scheduling work vs. religious commitments (Passover happens to fall right smack in the middle of our move-outs). How do I remain motivated? It's been a challenge, but I just keep repeating my mantra: in one minute... only now I begin with: this is what I know.

This is what I know: Tyler Durden says, "You are not your job."
This is what I know: I am not my job. But so much of me is in my job.
This is what I know: Everything in moderation.
This is what I know: Balance does not come naturally, it is a learned skill. Otherwise, we'd all be Gold Medal gymnasts.

This is what I know. In one minute, I can change my attitude. And in that minute, I can change my entire day.

This is what I know.

Inspired in the spring, as always

Those teasing blue March skies - clear and cloudless, blue to the point of pain - the suggestion that spring is near and waiting, yet delicately waiting to exhale a warm breath on the back of our necks. Sunshine and shadows, and that unblemished sky drawing us nearer to the windows, our inhalation of the defrost and awakening to come - and the harsh late winter wind! Cruel, merciless, and beguiling.

Always in the spring I feel refreshed, inspired, and ready to take on the world. I, like the rest of the natural world, slowly start to awaken from my deep mental hibernation of the last few months. This winter has proved all the more challenging as this was my first New England winter- and of course, the year I move up here, the snowiest in years past. Working in higher education has allowed me to retain the rhythm of the school year, and as March and April roll around, I feel the days growing longer and think about the respite of summer break. The sense of closure, the prospect of a break, and the excitement of moving onward are instilled in me during this time of year.

This year is no exception to feeling inspired. Having just survived my first national conference, I see the wealth of possibilities and where I need to be focusing my energies. My move to Boston was a huge transition, and the perfect opportunity for me to finally pinpoint what I need to be doing to develop myself professionally. (Personal development is worthy of another post.) I have found my fatal flaw to be, as one colleague put it, The Scarlet M - my lack of a master's degree. The glass ceiling in my field is crystal clear, and the fact that I even got my present position still amazes me from time to time.

I have been struggling since I started this position. It's not the workload, or the people, or the sheer logistics - ultimately, it's been the transition in general: uprooting myself from a comfortable, fairly predictable life with a solid base of friends and colleagues to an area of the country that is a) wicked colder b) farther from my family c) rife with opportunity in higher ed and d) where I know virtually no one compared to my circle of friends at home. Home - it took three years to call it that, and now I was leaving as quickly as I had gone down there in the first place.

My sense of stability was completely taken from me. The prospect of the new, the different, and all the work required on my part to adapt - these were all daunting thoughts I did my damnedest to bury and avoid.

The biggest challenge of moving here with no connections was finding work in a field that practically demands a graduate degree. My scarlet M was practically red hot, and in this position, I am paying my dues. I thought sticking it out for experience's sake would be enough, but it's not. I was so grateful then, for a particular session at this conference last week, that highlighted online graduate degree programs in the field. They are few and far between, but they exist. So I pooled my resources, figured out if I can make this work financially and still balance a full-time job, and applied to grad school yesterday.

I'm still kind of in denial that I actually applied yesterday. It's as though my rational, professional developmentally focused self has moved swiftly and independently of my typically hesitant, unfocused nature.

I created this blog last week as a source to vent about my scarlet M, and the struggles and tribulations of being a working professional in a field where the lack of a master's degree is perhaps the ultimate taboo - and here I have applied to a grad school. But I suppose with the inhalation of spring, so came the resolution to move forward, to spring ahead like daylight savings, to close the book on slow, plodding, indolent winter.

In the spring, I have found acceptance. Recognition of what's passed. Acknowledging it's time to move on.

I always seem to start new journals in the spring...

...funny how that always seems to be the case.