Monday Morning comes every week. You would think that I would learn to prepare for it.

Nope, every week it sneaks up on me. Attacking me when I am just beginning to get things done or so I like to think. The truth is as hard as I work, I am afraid at times and like to pass it off as my own laziness. So I dilly and a dally on unimportant things or start projects that I can’t finish.

There is plenty of time to prepare for school on the weekends or in the hours after school.  Maybe not the killer lessons I always want to teach, but a lesson nonetheless.  I would still be working fifty or so hours a week and in theory wouldn’t be so stressed out all time time.

My own self-doubt cuts at me like a knife and I spend time dreaming of what if’s instead of what next.  I collect books and links to help work past these mental blocks and they sit unread and unused.  I fall into psychological traps which my ego tells me that I am too smart for and yet, I am there again and again.

I want to free myself from stuff and have managed only to collect more. It is hard to say good-bye to things when my depression and anxiety clings to them.  This past week during a lovely insomnia fit, I cleaned out two bins in my dinning room which have been sitting there for months since I first got a roommate.

Efforts to meditate have been met with heavy resistance.  The negative aspects of my personality want to live and they fight for it. Day by day, I work on creating a routine that is healthy and rejuvenating.  Some days like today.  I don’t have a plan or don’t stick with the plan.

The plan was get up at six and take Luke for a walk. Get ready for Wacky Tacky day and leave for work about seven just in case they needed help in the cafeteria. If not, go to my classroom and prepare for the coming day and week.  My walking buddy cancelled and I slept in. Luke was delighted that he didn’t have to get up, but not so happy when his morning walk was cut short. I arrived at work late and barely had time to get everything set up. Still I plotted a course in my head and got the students on track.

Everything was going well until third period. Then one of the girls upset with her feedback didn’t listen and in frustration I let the paper fly from my hand she became in-sensed, claiming I was aiming for her head despite the physical impossibility given that I was seated and she was standing, threatened to beat my ass.  I don’t believe that she really meant me harm, still her words could not be ignored and a report was written. She earned herself a four-day suspension.  At lunch another student locked herself in the bathroom and was screaming in English and Spanish at her boyfriend or at least that was the gist of the conversation I overheard.  The big problem was that she left her baby in the cafeteria unattended, a sweet toddler who had no idea what happened to her mother.  My lunch was spent listening to and attempting to get her out of the bathroom. She came out when the other party hung up and received her only special invitation for an exclusive vacation. Two days.

Frustration and fear leads us to act out. I tend to work myself over the coals daily for things that are truly out of my hands, spending so much time worrying that I don’t take care of things that are in my control and then when they veer wildly into chaos add them to the list of things to torture myself with, opting for a more internal approach that causes less outward drama.  Like my girls, I avoid criticism and try to do better with as little effort as possible. Then fed up with the negative cycle, I dive back into life and get things done at least for a little while. Sometimes to be honest, I bully myself into getting up and going to work or starting/finishing a project. Asking myself again and again why am I not doing what I should and want to be doing. This is the reason that I finally finished the grad school application and applied for five adjunct teaching positions over the weekend.

Still days like today exhaust and send me into spirals of self-reflection.  I vow to do better or at least attempt to do better the next day and work on a plan. A real one with contingencies and oh, yes, I promise to write those lesson plans.