I have been burning the candle at both ends in the last few months, and I am unsure how to stop.
Grading nearly put me under at the end of the fall trimester - way too many papers and not enough time to get them completed given that I was filling in for my administrative assistant and given that only having 5 days to grade 70 hours worth of papers is not a good match. Oh - we were granted a reprieve - but I still ended up only having 5 days to get it done, given that the 5 days I was supposed to have for grading was spent with administrative tasks and fires.
I have a vastly different approach and style to management than those above me. I'm not so sure that their style and my style are a healthy match, given that stress trickles down rather than up.
I cannot continue to work this hard. This much I know. On some level, I feel that I took on an impossible task without knowing that it was going to be impossible when I took it on. I knew that it would be a challenge - but I didn't know it would be this much of a challenge.
I may have bitten off more than I can chew. However, I need to be kind to myself and allow this: when I took my first bite, I had no idea how complicated simple tasks would be. Everything takes much more work than what seems necessary. Very little is easily accomplished.
There is a piece of me that is burned out. I know this because I no longer feel the warmth of several passions I had when I started: my research has gone by the wayside; I doubt my clinical skills at this point; the desire to help students become confident evidence builders seems like a distant dream. I am disillusioned with what I thought I might be able to do as a program director, and I seem bound by past systems that have been set in place and move forward because changing them is not even considered.
I am also bound by my own inability to manage the things that need to be done - yet, if I am kind to and honest with myself, I would say that there are way too many things to be managed. I am only human. And that may be some of the root of the problem. I have come to embrace my human-ness - and no longer expect the super-human things of myself that I once did.
So - I will need some help to find my path through this. I have to believe that Spirit will lead. Making a stronger more consistent effort at disciplined listening with help. I do believe that my ancestors are with me, and I will need to depend on them as I step forward.
Wish me luck. I do believe that all will be well in the end.
In the meantime time, I could use just a little bit of sleep.
Melatonin, here I come.
