A Season of Unbalance

Unexpected amounts of snow at home.

The past couple of years I have worked hard to find balance in my life:  to sleep well, exercise well, eat well, and play well.  It has been a journey and a few weeks ago I wrote about finally finding balance in my life and feeling healthy.  After walking the marathon with my mom, that feeling quickly ended and I entered a season of unbalance. 

For four weeks, I traveled every week for either a conference or a campus interview.  The trips all required flying and everywhere I landed there was snow.  Luckily, I was always able to make my connections and I didn't get stuck anywhere.  But each trip also necessitated stressful preparation, for either a presentation, a lesson to teach, or research about the school where I was interviewing.  During this time I was also chairing the Curry Research Conference committee, planning and preparing for the conference.  Unfortunately, the snow that week caused the conference to be postponed and the need to reschedule all of our preparations.  And of course, there was the need to finish writing my dissertation. 

These past two months it has been a huge struggle to finish the writing, the editing, the re-editing of my dissertation.  I have worked 10 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week, struggled with sleeping and making time to exercise and basically felt like life was out of whack.  I realize this is all based on my desire to graduate in three years and completely self-inflicted.  However, I made the commitment to do it and so I have pushed to complete my dissertation and graduate. 

At some point in the midst of all of this I realized I had to let go and just be unbalanced for awhile, I needed a season of unbalance.  Having just found balance and feeling like I was at a healthy place, this was really hard for me.  I was concerned I wouldn't be able to get the balance back, but there was no way I could do everything I needed to do and stay balanced.  So, I gave myself permission to experience a season of unbalance, to be a little out of whack, and to not beat myself up for it.  At times we all need a season of unbalance in our lives and we just have to get through it.  I am still experiencing this season, it's a struggle, but I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel.  My dissertation is due March 14th and I defend on the 28th so the end is near.  I accepted a job offer at Northern Arizona University and I am looking forward to getting through this snowy season of unbalance and enjoying some spring time planning as I figure out what the future holds. 

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