Control

“I am the one thing in life I can control”. So sings Leslie Odom, Jr. in the song “Wait For It” from ‘Hamilton’. Since its release on Disney + last summer, I have been crazy obsessed with the soundtrack. Except for taking a pause to listen to Christmas music throughout December, I have hardly listened to any other music. While there are so many great songs on the soundtrack, truth be told there isn’t a bad song on there, this particular song has been resonating in my mind lately, particularly the line quoted above. It has sort of become a mantra for me, especially this week.

Being a teacher in the middle of a pandemic means that my stress level is at an all-time high. I cannot think of a public school in my state that is open for in-person instruction five days a week. Because I am a teacher in a Catholic school, we have been in-person since August. The added stress comes from the fact that while we have students in our classrooms five days a week, we also have students who join our classes virtually each day. There is extra work involved when you have to prepare and grade materials for students in two different settings. Last weekend I can honestly say that about 95% of my time was spent doing school work. I left myself very little time to do anything for myself. While I did feel tired and burned out by the end of the weekend, I underestimated just how burned out I truly felt. Not allowing myself free time to decompress was a huge mistake. By Monday afternoon, it was all I could do not to have a complete meltdown when I got home. It felt like I was shaking…but on the inside. I wanted to scream or cry or in some other way just completely let loose with my emotions.

As the week went on, I slowly began to feel better and better and somewhere in the midst of all the swirling negative feelings, I came to a realization. When I was at the lowest point of my mental illness almost 20 years ago, I was someone who found solace and comfort in cutting lines into my forearms with a razor blade. What I couldn’t ever adequately explain, or really understand until I started to get better, was that the physical pain from the cutting was my way of having some sort of outward control over the anguish I was feeling on the inside. I will never in my life go back to intentionally harming myself, but I was able to draw a parallel from that point in my past to what I am currently experiencing.

I feel that I cannot control the stress I am under now. Until summer break gets here, lesson plans will always be due at 8 am every Monday. Papers will need grading. Lesson materials will need to be copied, scanned, and uploaded to our virtual learning platform. It is my life right now. However, I can control what I do to relieve stress. And there has to be something to help it ease or else I will repeatedly have days like Monday of this week, and I don’t think that is in any way good for myself or my husband. So I have decided that running is going to fill that need.

My physical fitness is not what it was a year ago. Placing 3rd in a 10k was the peak of my running “game” and now I can hardly run a mile and a half without needing to stop because my lungs are screaming and my legs are cramping up. It’s even more apparent how much I have lost when I have to catch my breath after walking briskly down the hallway at school. While there have been a few bursts of running inspiration recently where I have run several days in a row, I have not kept it up with any kind of consistency. Since August, my excuse has always been that I don’t have time after school because I have so much work to do to prepare for the next day. That stops now. There is simply no reason that I should continue to use this excuse. There has to be time during the day when I am doing something for me. So much is out of my hands now. This pandemic has taken its toll on everybody, I am no exception. However, I am the one thing in life I can control. That alone gives me hope, and comfort. It allows me to believe that I can get through the rest of this school year without so many days of feeling like I want to quit teaching completely. And all I have to do is put my running shoes back on and lock the door behind me.