take care of yourself first Archives

It’s Never Ending, So You Must Learn to Care for Yourself Too

One Friday morning, I sat at my vanity doing some of my self-care activities when I realized I was surrounded by baskets of laundry. There were baskets of dirty clothes waiting to be washed and baskets of clean clothes waiting to be folded and put away.

Slightly annoyed at the thought of having to deal with that later this weekend, I started rattling off my to-do list in my head. I also had “piles” of papers to grade and “piles” of virtual assignments to grade. In addition, there were “piles” of papers that I needed to copy as well.

*Teaching is like laundry – There is always one more thing to do*

Piles, Piles, and Piles

I laughed to myself as I realized teaching is like laundry. There are piles everywhere and it’s never ending. It is never ending because students continue to do assignments everyday that needs to be graded. There will always be more lessons to plan and emails to answer.

Just like we wear clothes everyday and laundry becomes unavoidable, so is the continuous stream of schoolwork.

While At Home, Focus on Caring for Yourself

Yet, at home, I let the laundry pile up because I’ve done this for years now. I’ve had more pressing matters throughout the week than attending to the folding of the laundry. I will eventually fold and put away all those clothes. However, over the years, I don’t fret over it anymore.

Teaching is like laundry. It’s never ending.

So, why do I fret over schoolwork so much, even after nearly eleven years of teaching? Sometimes the schoolwork piles up because, like laundry, I’ve been busy with all of the other aspects of teaching.

A Promise

So, sitting there at my vanity that Friday morning, I made myself a promise, a self-care promise.

I promise I will not be consumed by the to-do list of laundry OR schoolwork. All of this work will eventually get done. I need to take a deep breath in the meantime and enjoy my life.