Getting to do

​   It’s the last day of holidays, and the last chance to grab some extra sleep, so of course I am awake and up at 6am. Haha.
   There’s always a lot of back-to-school stress and excitement on a subconscious level. My brain is busy planning and making lists even when I sleep. And if I don’t get up and write them down, they’ll be gone, with no amount of coffee able to retrieve them later!
   So I’m up lol.
   There’s a lot of changes happening for me this year, so I’m going to have to be more cognizant that they are going to affect me, even if I don’t feel it on the surface level.
   The big one, of course, is my empty house. Both kids at Mount Royal University in Calgary and a shift-working spouse, means there is going to be a whole lotta silence in places it has never been before. I’m still in denial about this, so I don’t even want to write/think about it right now.
   But I’m sure it’ll come up here repeatedly this year!
   I have new courses to teach, new students to meet, and new colleagues to work with. Schools are a continual change agency, and I love it. Literally, no two days, hours, or even minutes are ever the same. I always think of the quote by Dr. Tina Boogren: Teachers make more minute by minute decisions than brain surgeons, and that’s why you are going home exhausted each day.” Thank goodness our decisions don’t require fine motor skills, that’s all I can say. We were playing Star Wars Operation as a family the other night (yep, four adults playing a game for eight years olds lol) and I got demolished! Damn buzzer every time.
   As I get older, the hard part is not change. It’s that there isn’t enough time for all the changes I want to have happen.
   Sometimes I get mired in that.
   I’m a live-every-moment, leave-nothing-unsaid, sits-and-stares-at-sunsets person. But the other thing I’ll be watching for this year, is keeping that growth mindset afloat when I feel frustrated by time.
   One way is by remembering what we “get” to do each day. Our division talks about this a lot, and I love that.
   This summer, I ‘got’ to do a lot of things. I learned how to do beading. I read a lot of books. I shingled my first roof. I completed the accreditation seminar. I crossed the wake and back in wakeboarding. (Okay, it was only twice, but it still happened.) I got to see old classmates at a 30 year reunion. I went camping. I spent time with our families and celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.
   But I also said goodbye to my closest cousin, who died of cancer this week: a teacher, a coach and athlete, a wonderful mom, and just one of the kindest, sweetest people in the world. She was anticipating getting back in her classroom in November after her treatments were done. All the amazing things that she was yet to do in her life…it leaves me bereft and so, so sad.
   And so I’m remembering all the things I get to do this year:
   I get to meet new people. Whole class sets of them.
   I get to coach and play a game that I love.
   I get to believe in people.
   I get to make music.
   I get to read and write with students, and share my love of both.
   I get to run. As much or as little as I want.
   I get to go to a job that doesn’t feel like work.
   I get to look at as many sunsets as I can, and fill the storage space on my phone with essentially the same picture every day.
   I get to love and be loved.
   And I’d say that looks like a pretty great list of things I get to do.
 
   As we head back tomorrow, I’ll see you soon. Meena kawapimitin. Nähdään pian.
   Edla.