The Professional Life

Last night, we had some friends over who are in a very similar situation as us.  They are newly married, he is in school, she is working full-time and feeling overwhelmed, many of their friends have moved away... all factors which prompted a conversation about how different our lives are now than they were a year ago. 

In school, most of my decisions affected only me.  Will I sleep a little later and study less for that test?  Will I go to this meeting tonight or should I go to the gym instead?  One of the most important things about school- my grades- didn't matter to anyone but myself.  Now it seems that almost everything I do affects someone else, and often my decisions affect multiple people.  If I forget to tell my kids about a fire drill, someone throws a fit when the alarm sounds.  If I don't send a note home that gymnastics is tomorrow, someone wears a dress and off I go to round up some sort of alternative attire.  More importantly, if I run out of time to cover a subject, it's the kids who suffer.  Suddenly, every decision I make seems significant.  And now, not being perfect bothers me more than ever.

Furthermore, the community of friends which fell into my lap in college has proved to be much more difficult to acquire in a professional setting.  I have wonderful aides, and there are some wonderful people who work at my school, but despite the fact that I spend 8+ hours of my day with these people, I still feel as if I hardly know most of them.  There simply isn't time to have the kinds of life conversations that just happened during a study session or a late game night.  At work, there is only time to talk about the here and now- "Where does Seth need to be right now" or "Did Jason's homework folder make it back to school today?"

Finally, I always thought I was so busy in college and now I am realizing that I had no idea what busy was.  Usually the longest I sit down during the day is for about 15 minutes at lunch.  I have about seventeen things racing through my mind at any given time and also have a to-do list which literally never ends.  When I wake up, I think about school.  When I come home, I work on school.  And then what I used to consider my life (seeing friends, going to bible study, running, etc.) takes up the last and tiniest piece of the pie.  I'm hoping that will change to some degree as the year goes by and I feel a little less like I'm drowning.   

I love to walk around the campus of OU still.  There is something so stimulating about being at an institution of higher learning and thinking, "Great minds are being enriched here.  People go out from here to do things that change lives."  But there are also many things about my job which suit me.  Sometimes I complain about being busy, but honestly, I like being busy.  I love the challenge that my job brings because there is hope for overcoming obstacles, and it prevents boredom and monotony.  This may be one of the hardest and best things I've done.