Newton's Third Law

For every moment last semester that I felt like I could not only survive being a working mother but maybe even survive it with a little grace and class, I have had a moment this semester where I thought perhaps I not only shouldn't have had a child but maybe I should quit my job too.

It's been a rough few weeks. Some semesters I am blessed with students that are easy to accommodate. While they all require their own specific relationship, I usually figure it out pretty quickly with not a lot of stress. This semester has been the exact opposite of ease. I have one particular student this semester who is challenging my confidence as a college instructor. This student has taken more patience than I have mustered for anyone in a long time. I want to help but worry I don't have the tools. To add to this students clear need for a specific sort of relationship and understanding, there is a very negative attitude that makes it hard to see the person under the negative exterior. I have a hard time with bad attitudes. I can deal with a lot of things but negativity is hard for me. Sadly, this is not the only student I've been spending extra time with this semester though, I have quite a few that are dealing with things that are beyond imagination. There is a lot of pain, turmoil, and adult circumstances underneath these "typical" college students' exterior. Being 19 is not as easy as we all like to pretend it is.

School has been zapping my excess energy and has left me pretty worthless at home. I feel like I've hit an all time low when I snip at my just over one-year-old for squishing his banana hands into my dress pants on a morning when we're already running late. Even in the moment I know I'm overreacting, but I'm so twisted up that it takes very little for me to spin out of control. I'm very lucky to have an understanding husband to pick up my slack, but I worry that one day he'll have had enough of my antics and lose the patience he's always had enough of for the both of us. I've been practicing deep breathing. Thinking before I speak. Remembering what's really important. All of that mumbo jumbo!

Other than the mumbo jumbo, I do not currently have a great solution for my overwhelmed nature. I'm trying to slow down and appreciate the small things and be more gracious with myself. When I feel my organized life spinning out of control I often try to overcompensate with list making and scheduling every waking (and occasional non-waking) moment. We know this mama is losing it when "shower," "fill water bottle," and "wash face" are scheduled into time increments on my weekly calendar and are color coded by category. For the record, "fill water bottle" is blue for Fuel/Recharge and I've allotted five minutes every two hours to get out to the water fountain and back.

Losing it? Maybe a little bit.

Days of Thanksgiving: Five

5. I am thankful for kindness. After running around frantic and frazzled on Friday morning, I ended up in a car accident. Other than the sun that was in my eyes, it was entirely my fault. I was letting my "gotta go" mentality keep me from being safe and present in the moment. Louis and I  were in the car but besides my pride and the front drivers side wheel well area, we were unhurt.


In the remaining day, when people could have been incredibly irritated and rude about my incident, I was surrounded by kindness. The man I hit was unreasonably supportive, Nevin was caring, our insurance agent was understanding, and the students I stood up were more concerned with me than having to reschedule our meetings. I cannot say in my rush around lifestyle I always embody the spirit of kindness. I wish to be better about being kind myself and taking the time to recognize the kindness in others.

Being an educator

I really do love my job. I am surrounded by passionate people, I am inspired by young people just starting to make lives for themselves, I learn new things every day, and I am constantly challenged to evaluate what it is I believe and why. I am also never completely off of the clock. I could always be reading, revising, learning, evaluating, tweaking, updating, changing, or trying something else. And my job is a critical lens in which I view everything around me. In addition to teaching communication, I am the director of a violence prevention peer education troupe. I am surrounded by inspiring people trying to change societal norms that foster a culture in which gender violence happens every day. Most days the inspiring people are enough to keep me from feeling like Sisyphus. Some days (or weeks) however, I am overwhelmed and the fight feels impossible. Is it worth the effort or am I just burning myself out? Can I really make a difference or do I just let the outside forces win and go back to a life of ignorance? How do I protect my son from outside forces without shielding him from the lessons he must learn for himself? Can I continue to inspire and work with young adults, when I sometimes have a nagging feeling that my life would be easier with a less complex job?


Last weekend I attended a college football game with my husband. We were seated next to the student section and instead of being able to focus on the field (I acknowledge there are cultural issues with football itself but that's for another day) I couldn't tear my eyes away from a situation unfolding in front of me. A young woman (a 20 year old sophomore I found out through overheard conversation) was drunk and being objectified by much older men seated in the section I was in. It started with them comments to each other before becoming comments directly to her. They eventually invited her to sit with them and in conjunction she began flirting with these men who where giving her attention. About this time one of her friends came over to ask if she was okay sitting with these men (good friend), and the young woman insisted she was. The longer the woman sat with these men, the more negative attention they started to receive from others in the section. Not at their blatant disregard of this woman as an actual person, but because her drunk behavior was annoying to them. The men's positive attention to her face continued but unbeknownst to her, a second line of comments was being directed to their section-mates. The double standard of what was expected of this woman infuriated me. She was "hot" when she wasn't acknowledging them, but the second she bought into engaging she became a "slut." To her face she was appealing but behind her back she was demeaned. Eventually her friend came back to get her and she left "safely" with people her own age. It was not my place as an outsider to say anything, but I looked at the silent supporters engaging in this interaction and wondered why no one else did. These people know each other. They sit together at every home game (we had acquired these season ticket seats for the week from an acquaintance), why was the rhetoric about the young woman's actions and not at the men and to the men? By just sitting there was I engaging in these destructive societal norms too?


I have been deemed a killjoy by even some of my closest friends, when I am unable to just sit back, relax and turn it off. I used to enjoy going out for drinks at a local bar with my friends. They misinterpret my lack of desire for this past life as a byproduct of becoming boring when my son was born. While my new veneration of sleep may be a byproduct of being a parent, my discomfort in these social situations is an undesired consequence of my job. When I was a student doing gender violence prevention work, I was much better at compartmentalizing my life. Now I see my every action as engaging in (even inadvertently) or agitating against destructive societal norms. Can anything just be fun? Can/should a cultural lens be muted for the benefit of (much needed) relaxation?


On a related note, I will not be attending a Halloween party this year because of scheduling problems. If I were, I would be going as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Engaging in or agitating against. It's the best I can do.