Balancing Act

This week kicked my ass in a major way. After our Thanksgiving driving marathon, we returned to Bryn Mawr sated with family and food, but mainly, utterly exhaustified (which is not technically a word, but totally should be). Although I did do some work while I was in Virginia & South Carolina, I found myself scrambling all week to get my work done on time this week. And by scrambling, I mean not sleeping, panicking, crying, skimming hundreds of pages on Latin syntax, and frantically typing late into the night.

Anxious and stressed, every day felt sour and sad; I was so completely overwhelmed with school that I stopped doing anything else. Preston and I haven't cooked together all week (read: we've been eating crap) and I haven't run a lick since Thanksgiving (read: I can feel my muscles atrophying...not attractive). In times of stress, I often make this mistake: I focus all of my anxiety so much in one area of my life that I don't give myself the time to do or think about anything else. But when I step back, I always find that when I give myself that time to myself--whether it's to go for a run or cook dinner with Preston--everything else somehow seems to fall into place. In short: when I live a balanced life, I'm happier and more productive. SHOCKING, I know. I'm a slow learner, apparently.

However, I know I'm not alone here. Maybe it's because I pick friends who are JUST LIKE ME, but I know that I have friends who struggle with living balanced lives. We pour ALL our energy and ALL our time into one or two pieces of our lives, while everything else seems to get lost in the shuffle, whether that's eating well, exercising, spending time with friends, watching 30 Rock (which is absolutely a crucial component of my happiness; tangentially, everyone should read the awesome Vanity Fair article on Tina Fey. Seriously. I think I might love her), talking to our parents, playing with our dogs, vacuuming our apartments (OOPS), reading for pleasure (novel idea, right? pun intended), and about one thousand other things.

Today, however, the week from purgatory (not quite the week from hell, I'd say) is over, and I've been picking up the pieces. I've been catching up, cleaning up, putting away, and sliding back into my routine. I went running for the first time, really, since the half marathon two weeks ago (which felt wonderful, but HELLO I am now a slow old woman with slow old woman legs), did a little Christmas shopping this morning, finished getting Christmas decorations up around the apartment, watched Enchanted online with Preston (I heart Netflix), finally uploaded photos to Flickr, finished putting my summer clothes in storage (yes I know. I lose), gathered my bags of old clothes for Goodwill, did some dishes, showered (listed here because this is no longer necessarily an every day occurrence. You're welcome!), and did NO SCHOOL WORK AT ALL. Which is a little terrifying, given how much I have to do in the next few weeks, but also deliciously liberating.

I have no illusions that this struggle for balance will magically evaporate any time in the next, oh, fifty years; it certainly won't evaporate for the next five, while I'm still in school. However, I think it's good that I fail every now and then--that I lose my balance and lose my way. It makes rediscovering the balance that much sweeter. So with that, I'm off to chat with Pres about our meals for the week, drink some/a lot of wine, and write my final wedding thank you notes for gifts that arrived late. The addition of wine should make for some interesting thank you notes. Slash AWESOME.