Just a thought…Running away or towards…
Guest Blogger, Sandi Ben-Dov, is a Language Arts teacher who has traveled the country and the world. She is a collector of stories and her current read is, The Woman They Could Not Silence, by Kate Moore
Ever catch yourself wishing time away? I can’t wait until tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now or until I get this job, retire, the children leave home, and the list continues. It is a guilt ridden shamed filled moment when I realize that instead of slowing down, I am running towards the inevitability that life is short. That in the blink of an eye, those moments are gone. The events that I could not wait for mhave disappeared and I have pictures in my mind or saved in an App, but the moment is gone. understand that it is important to have goals. I understand that time passes. Yet there is this nagging sense that I am often wishing away the moments at hand.
Let me tell you the struggle that I have had this past year.
As a high school teacher, I made it through the first two years of Covid and hybrid teaching, wearing masks, sickness, and I thought that it would be okay. Truthfully, many of us in the teaching world and our students as well are burned out. This year has been the most difficult of all for many of us. A year where I keep wishing my life away. Counting the days until school breaks and summer and then thinking about retirement. Wanting it to be here sooner than later even if that meant that I am aging myself up unless some miracle occurs and I find an elixir for youth, my pension grows exponentially, or I take some leap and can enter a different career without going into Debtor’s Prison or like so few in America- I win the Lottery which I don’t even play. Often my students and other adults do the same thing. I teach tenth grade and twelfth grade and there is not much difference. I can’t wait until I am a senior. I can’t wait to be done with school. I can’t wait to graduate. I can’t wait till this game, event, or moment.
Wait, you say there is nothing wrong with this? That we are just human. Maybe.
I believe though that we have lost the connection with staying present and just being. Even if the moment is tedious, uneventful, boring, lacking anything out of the normal. I often ask my students to look out of the window. I talk about how when we slow down and “...pay attention to what we pay attention to.” Thank you, John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed
Learning to see beauty in the ordinary, we can capture moments in our mind’s eye that can bring us solace when we need it. This to me is something that I continue to lean towards and even though I was a critic when The Mindfulness Movement started, now I know that these teachings are one of the ways that we can savor our lives. Turn back the clocks of time, at least figuratively-for now.
When I practice moments of meditation, or quiet, or spend time in the woods or anywhere in nature, my mind, body, and soul can breathe. Tensions lift away. Crease lines and frown lines disappear. When I took the step to try tapping and other visual exercises and meditations, I found myself lighter. I went back to work after being out for a knee surgery and had been away from the building, students, stressors for 28 days. I had a fear of going back. Instead, I had the ability to change my mindset. I can remind myself to slow down, stop rushing to the finish line, stop filling up my life with endless commitments. Pare down my activities and savor the moment and work through the not-so-great moments.
Everything will finish in its own time.
Just a thought…
