I am feeling a little overwhelmed this evening.  I have a list of “todos” that I go through on Sundays.  I send out an email and “one call” to my families and an instructionally-focused email to the staff.  Before I send out my staff email, I like to draft a new blog post. This week, I also have a few items on my list that are due tomorrow that I do not normally have.  In addition, it was a beautiful weekend.  In my efforts to get some exercise and enjoy the weather I went for an hour bike ride yesterday and a 2-hour hike today.  Now, I feel a knot in my stomach as I think of what needs to be accomplished before I go to bed.  I also want to be sure that I get enough sleep so that I can get up to exercise at 4:30 AM.

I know I am not alone in my feelings of being overwhelmed.   Many educators who try to balance the demands and joys of family time on the weekends with staying caught up with work feel this pressure on Sunday nights.  I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know that I put a lot of this pressure on myself.  A lot of teachers I know do the same:

We don’t HAVE to have x,y, & z done, but it would be so GREAT, or the kids would just LOVE this activity, or the families would really APPRECIATE that level of communication, or there’s that FABULOUS idea we saw on Pinterest that we could do that would just take a minute…

As I struggle with balance, I am thinking that balance doesn’t mean that I equally incorporate all aspects of my life in equal measure all the time.  It’s proving to be impossible.  I think it’s more like a run/walk interval.  I find that when I do a long run it can help to use a cycle of running for two minutes and walking for one minute.  If I am intentional about periodic walking I don’t feel like I am “slacking” by taking walk breaks and I can go a longer distance without feeling as tired after.

It was a pretty weekend. It was good to be outside.  Perhaps I won’t spend as much time crafting the perfect email this weekend, perhaps my one call will have a couple of words I stumble over, perhaps this blog won’t be a very deep reflection, but it will be okay.  I can not run full out in every aspect of my life perfectly all the time.  Sometimes an intentional walk break is a needed to power through the long run.