It's all about balance...

What I do (professionally) is important, but it's not important enough to be all that I do. That is something that took me awhile to learn. And, this weekend felt like a regression.

K had an enjoyable time at ACL on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I was supposed to be there enjoying the experience with him and, well, just enjoying being with him. But, that didn't happen. Pretty early in the week I realized that there was no way that I was going to be able to go with my running schedule and teaching demands. So, we ended up selling my ticket. And, here's how the weekend went down...

K and I barely spent a handful of hours together this weekend. He was already gone to the festival by the time I got home from work on Friday, so it was a night at home alone eating my pre-long run dinner of pasta, preparing for my class, and catching up on some shows from the DVR. Then, it was up at 5:30am on Saturday to head out to Bastrop where I was meeting up with a few others who weren't able to go to Bandera for the scheduled long run. I was the first one there so I went ahead and got started. I ran alone, for 22.5 miles. Overall, I had a good run (but had some GI issues during my second loop). I was relieved at how well it went considering my last "long" run was the 17-miler on the day before the wedding three weeks ago. It was lunchtime by the time I made it back home, and K was still home watching football so he made me his famous K burgers. After a pretty short "nap," I went to get a massage while K headed out to the festival. I got home about 5 and had dinner (I was STARVING) then settled in for some more couch time to watch tv last night. Since running dominated my day yesterday, I had to place more priority on teaching stuff today (and that meant not running today). I spent the day/evening working on stuff for my class and taking care of some household stuff (laundry, groceries). And, the thing is that there is still so much more to do.

So, back to my point. I'm worried that I took on too much with this teaching gig. I know it's only 1 class and in some ways I'm playing catch up from the 2 weeks that I was out for the honeymoon. But, I'm concerned because I don't necessarily see this weekend as an anomaly either. My students will be turning in their first (of three) major projects to me this week (which means making time to watch 13 20-minute videos of a mock counseling session and grading their papers) and then they have their midterm exam next week (which means putting the exam together and grading it). So, essentially, I'm worried that all of this will be taking my time away from the non-work things that are really important to me - obviously spending time with K and my friends. Not to mention that our house is a disaster, I have a million thank-you cards to write, and I have lots of miles to run, etc.

The positives though - I really, really do enjoy teaching. I have a great bunch of students, and each week I think that we're going to get out of class early, but we end up staying for the full three hours because we're having such a good discussion. And, even though I haven't gotten my first paycheck yet, the extra income will certainly be nice - mainly, I won't have to stress about money quite so much and it will allow me to do more of the extra things that I/we want to do.

But, I already have a full-time job. And, as much as I gripe about my job, I really do a good job of not bringing work home with me (literally and figuratively) and having a good separation of my personal and professional lives. It's only been in the past couple of years that I've finally been able to achieve that balance, and I guess I'm just worried about losing it.