An Experiment Pays Off

This is the eighth Slice of Life Story Challenge I have participated in. The first one was a bit of a lark. I didn't have a blog and had to set one up, which I did on my husband's Gmail account. Had I known that I would keep writing, I would have set up my own account, but I never anticipated that I would still be at it eight years later.

It's not a perfect streak, however. Last year, I skipped the challenge. At that time I said it was due to the demands of a new job and taking an online class. Those were valid reasons, but I don't think they were entirely honest. Looking back, I think I was broken.

The pandemic took its toll on everyone, but I've come to realize that there was a lot more baggage I was already carrying around with me. My mom's death in 2019 and the stress of the year leading up to it was something I hadn't completely dealt with when the world shut down. Then, despite working hard to be the teacher my students and their parents needed when we returned, I was laid off and had to move to another school after twenty years at my previous one. Transitioning from elementary to middle school proved to be more difficult than I had expected. By the time March of 2022 rolled around, I felt there was nothing left to give and certainly nothing left to say.

This month has been a bit of an experiment. Not only did I sign up for this challenge, but I also signed up for a fitness challenge at work. This has resulted in daily writing, daily exercise, and doubling my consumption of water. The outcome of this experiment? I've been feeling much happier and energetic than I have in a very long time.

Which leads me to consider several ideas, the first one being, why do we seem to avoid the things that will make us feel better when we sink into a pit of misery? I'm not stupid. I know that exercise is a mood booster and I know that, for me, writing is, too. So why did I choose to sit on the couch watching inane television and drinking wine? It didn't help, I knew it wouldn't, but I did it anyway, hoping that time would heal without my having to put any effort into it., I suppose. The only problem was, my solution was actually making things worse.

The second thought that has been gnawing away at me is how there is no single right answer to most problems people face. Everyone wants an easy fix, and you will read blog posts and articles claiming that they have the answer, but there really isn't a magic bullet. It takes work and usually more than one tactic. I'm pretty sure that merely drinking more water would have done nothing more than make me have to use the bathroom more frequently. Putting all three things into play, however, made a significant impact. I'll be honest and admit there are other factors that could account for my more positive mood these days. My husband's new job that makes him happy, my fantastic co-workers, and my planned early exit from teaching contribute to my improved outlook on life. Sunshine and spring break don't hurt either. So, I'm not going to tell you that what has worked for me will work for you. What will work for you, that is for you to decide. 

I'm also not going to mislead anyone into thinking I am just a constant ray of sunshine now. (Those who know me in real life will attest to this fact.) I still have moments when I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, but there are equal moments of lightness now. What I have learned is that taking care of yourself, really taking care of yourself, isn't a luxury that can be put off when life gets too chaotic. In fact, when you don't have time to take care of yourself is exactly when you can't afford not to.

A Wrong Decision

I had every intention of going to my son's track meet today. The plan was for my husband to pick up our son at school at 1:15 and, since he didn't know if he would need to go back to work or not, I would leave work at 2:30, come home, and pick up Jack to take him to his meet. That was the plan, or at least I thought it was, until I was getting ready to leave work and saw on Life360 that both my husband and son were already at the meet.

Even so, I still planned on going. I just had to run home first to pick up layers of warm clothing to protect me from the dip in temperature that would occur before Jack's second race. It was only once I had walked into the empty house that I started to have second thoughts. The solitude was so welcoming, especially after a week that seemed like it would never end, as the weeks before breaks often do. Maybe I could sit this race out.

Mother's guilt set in, of course. I texted my husband, hoping he would assuage the guilt.

You can stay home if you want to. I know it's been a long week for you, came his reply, followed immediately by, And there's wine in the fridge but none here.

I am blessed to be married to a man who gets me. I still wavered, though. I should go; there was no good reason not to.

Another text from my husband appeared a few minutes later: There is one bathroom open and I overheard someone say [the] wait is 45 minutes and they ran out of toilet paper.

That clinched it for me. I decided to stay home. 

As it turns out, it was the wrong decision. I thought I would revel in the opportunity to unwind from the day and get in some uninterrupted writing time. Yet, as I sit here, trying to write my ending, I realize that I can't write it because I chose the wrong one. Instead of a quiet evening to myself, I should be spending it surrounded by the noise and excitement of young athletes pushing past their limits to outperform themselves. I should be chatting with my husband as we shiver in the stands and wait to yell ourselves hoarse every time our son runs by. I know there will be other races in the weeks ahead, but I needlessly missed this one, and that is something truly regrettable.

An Unexpected Gift

My intervention class was a little late getting dismissed to lunch today. Toward the end of class, I had announced, "I'm bored," and projected the join code to a Gimkit game, much to the delight of my students.

"Let's go!" I heard one of them call out.

The game had gone right up until the bell rang for lunch, but the students insisted on seeing who had won. It was a bit chaotic as it usually is at the end of class, with students packing up and jostling against each other, trying to get out the door. I happened to catch sight of one of my students walking across the front of the room in the opposite direction. It was a student who struggles a bit, but had come after school the day before to get help with his assignments. He had been so excited when I had immediately entered his grades into the grade book and he saw that his grade had gone up to an A. What was strange about seeing him at this moment was he wasn't in my intervention class. He must have slipped through the door while the others were leaving.

"I just wanted to give you something," he said as he quickly turned around at my desk and headed back for the door.

On my desk was a tiny package of gummy bears.

Today, as most days, was filled with irritations and frustrations. But tonight, I can't recall exactly what they were; all I can remember is that little pack of gummy bears.

It Can't Be Easy Being the Husband of a Slicer

Every year during the Slice of Life Writing Challenge, I feel compelled to give a shout-out to my husband. I would not be able to take the time to write and read and respond to other bloggers without his support. Many nights, he's in the kitchen cooking dinner after a long day at work while I'm furiously tapping away on my computer. Whenever I express guilt over the time I'm taking to write, he always assures me that he doesn't mind. 

Some nights, though, I'm sure he wishes I would hurry up and hit "publish" already. One night recently I was trying to finish up my writing while he and I were seated on the couch and my son was nearby in the recliner. The t.v. was on and both my husband and son seemed particularly chatty. This was a bit of a problem for me as I was trying to work out the ending to the story I was working on and I couldn't concentrate. I don't remember what I said exactly, but I do remember my husband's response.

"I haven't seen you all day and I have things to say," he said.

Not looking up from my computer, I offhandedly remarked, "Write them down."

"Wow! Put that in your blog and smoke it," he retorted. We both burst out laughing.

Well, honey, I'm not sure how to smoke it, but I did put it in my blog. Thank you for the story!

Improvisation

Maybe it was because it was the week before Spring Break. Maybe it was the hour-long staff meeting I had to sit through. Or, maybe I was still recovering from the weekend. Whatever it was, by the time I got home yesterday, I was Friday-night tired. Which is especially bad on a Monday.

I was so tired that I was seriously regretting having signed up for the fitness challenge at work. What was I thinking, signing up for two challenges in the same month? I thought I didn't have enough time in the day before. Did something happen in February that made me think I was miraculously going to have time to read, write, and exercise every day? True, I had found the time for the last couple of weeks, but last night I just didn't think I had the energy to do it all.

So, when my husband asked if we were going for a walk, I gave him a guilty look and whined, "I'm really tired. Maybe I could use my rest day today?"

My husband looked somewhat relieved. "You want to call a mulligan? My knee has been hurting and it might be a good idea to give it a rest."

Now I was the one to look relieved. That is until I remembered the flash challenge for the week: travel a mile each day. Even if I used up my rest day, that only applied to the 30-60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise. I still had to travel a mile.

My husband had already gone into the kitchen to start making dinner, and I really didn't want to go outside and walk the neighborhood by myself. What was I going to do? 

Then, I had a brilliant idea: the race track. 

Okay, it wasn't brilliant; in fact, it was actually quite silly, but it would work. The race track isn't really a race track. When our kids were little, they had ride-on toys that they would propel themselves on through the kitchen, turn through the family room, go down the hall, then turn again through the living room and dining room, back into the kitchen. They would go around and around as fast as they could go without running into walls (well, that may have happened a few times), which was why we began calling it the race track. If my kids could do laps around the house, why couldn't I?

And so I did. 

Around and around I went, while my husband cooked dinner and one of my cats gave me baffled looks every time I passed her by. At one point my son came downstairs, and he didn't even bat an eye at his mother walking around in circles, which makes me wonder if he has already come to the conclusion that I'm not the sanest person in the world. The funniest moment came, however, when my husband started walking behind me.

"Are you following me?" I asked, never breaking stride.

"No, I'm just trying to read you this story," he replied, matching my pace as he read from his cell phone.

Hopefully, we didn't have anyone spying on us through our windows because I'm sure we made a comical sight. But comical or not, I got in my 30 minutes and traveled my mile. Mission accomplished!

Four Days and Counting

"Hey, any chance I could borrow 8 of your whiteboards on Monday? I have an idea for another disastrous lesson," I texted my friend, who teaches math next door to me.

"Big or small?" came her immediate reply. 

"Big."

"Yep."

"Awesome! Thanks!!"

"Always supportive of a disastrous lesson!"

I laughed. I was really hoping that it wouldn't actually be a disaster, but I could see where it could go horribly wrong. My idea was to attach a different picture to each whiteboard and have teams of four record their observations. These teams would rotate through the room until they had had a chance to record observations for all eight pictures. When they returned to their original board, they were to work together to infer what was really going on in the picture based on the evidence.

It was mostly the "rotating through the room" part that had disaster written all over it. I was pretty sure my second period class could handle it. Probably my sixth period class as well. Fourth and eighth? Not so much.

But I am never one to back down from a challenge, so today I went in and boldly followed my lesson plan. And it was. . .

Pretty okay. As predicted, second and sixth periods did the best. Fourth and eighth were also successful for the most part, although there were a few groups who still need to work on distinguishing between observations and inferences. I kept things moving by allowing them only two minutes to observe each picture, which I think helped eliminate some of the issues that can erupt when students are allowed out of their seats. There was still some shooing of students who had strayed from their teams, but on the whole it went better than expected. 

All I need to do now is find a way to get through these next four days before Spring Break!

Weekend at the Races

I had been sitting in the bleachers for hours. This sounds like the beginning of a story of misery, but it was actually quite pleasant. I had brought the stadium seat my husband had recently purchased, and I was surprised at how comfortable it was. After freezing in this same location the night before, the morning provided bright, cheerful sunshine that kept me sufficiently warm. The stadium was surrounded by green hills and a bright blue canopy hung overhead. It was a lovely and relaxing way to spend a Saturday morning.

On the field below, high school students were warming up as runners raced around the track. Today's events were starting with the 1600 meters; girls first, then boys. There were 26 heats for the girls, and my son was running in the 16th heat of the boys' races, which was why I was spending a large amount of time in the stands. I didn't mind. It was a beautiful day, the air was full of energy, and the races were exciting to watch. You couldn't help but cheer for kids you didn't even know as they poured everything they had into making it across the finish line as fast as they could.

My son's race, of course, was the one I was most interested in. 

"What's your goal for this race?" I had asked him.

"Sub 5:20," he responded.

Finally, it was getting close to his race time. I scanned the field, looking for him, and panicked when I didn't see him anywhere. What if he missed his race? I tried to assure myself that wouldn't happen, but time was ticking away and still I didn't see him. At what seemed like the last possible second, as the runners in heat 14 were well into their race, I saw him and a couple of his teammates casually sauntering across the field, their racing spikes in hand. "Hurry up," I wanted to tell him, but there would be no way for him to hear me and all that it would accomplish would be to irritate the spectators around me. So, I silently willed him to get a move on. Miraculously (or maybe he really did know what he was doing), he was ready to go and lined up when he needed to be.

All morning I had been debating whether to stay in my seat for the race or move down to the observation area on the track. If I stayed where I was, I would be able to get a better view of the whole race, which I was going to video for my husband who couldn't be there. The only problem was I wouldn't be able to yell encouragement to my son as he ran by. Most of the time, he says he doesn't hear me, but I somehow felt that I would be failing as a mother if I didn't at least try. Everyone needs a cheerleader. I grabbed my backpack and made my way down to the track.

"Pop!" The starting pistol fired and thirty runners took off. I could see Jack as he rounded the bend of the track. There was unusual movement, and I knew intuitively that someone had fallen. My heart sank. "Oh no! Don't let it be my baby," I whispered to the running gods, as I frantically scanned the runners who were now on the far side of the track. I rejoiced when I saw my boy, still running.

The tight pack of runners rounded the other end of the track and began thundering toward us. Still clutching my camera, I looked for my son. "Go, Jack!" I yelled as he ran by. I strained to see him as they rounded the bend once again. I resumed my prayers to the running gods: "Please let him do well, please let him do well." I was whispering the words out loud, and I was certain that if anyone heard me, they would think I was a lunatic. I didn't care. All that mattered was that my son had a good race.

The pack thundered by again. "You got this, Jack!" I yelled. Maybe he heard me, maybe he didn't. He was clearly in a zone.

By the time they were barreling toward the finish line, Jack had moved up. There were now way more runners behind him than in front of him. Tears filled my eyes as I watched my boy cross the finish line in sixth place. He had accomplished his goal, completing the race in 5 minutes and 17 seconds.

My mind flashed on several articles I had read recently about people who didn't want to have children or were so happy that they never did. That may be the right choice for them, but it wouldn't have been for me. In that moment, I knew that there was nothing that I could ever do in life that would fill me with as much pride and gratitude as being a mother watching her child working hard and achieving what he had set out to accomplish.