Magic Moments

I have been away too long. I can't believe that a week has passed since my last post - yikes! I certainly have been feeling the absence. At the same time the past week has been incredible. I have gotten a ton done (technically not enough, but still) and enjoyed time with my wife, with my colleagues and with friends. My daughter is on a trip and I have missed her too. She comes home tomorrow (well, it would actually be today now) and we are excited to see her.

My life has been dominated for the past week with house items and school items. My wife and I learned a LOT about exterior doors and their measurements over the weekend. We are going to have work done on our home and needed to buy the doors so the contractor could install them. Because our current doors actually swing out (and have a door knob in the center of the door making them even weirder) the rough openings are small. In fact we thought for a while they were too small because after measuring them, we could find NO doors that "matched." It turns out that the "rough opening" on doors is an estimate. We should be fine.

I did get super stressed during the process of shopping - I tend to over react any time we are doing "house things" since (as a guy) I am supposed to handle that stuff. Of course that is crazy. Fortunately, we handled my stress well and actually purchased the doors - all of them. Hooray. All of it kept me from getting school prep done, but it is about finding balance.

School has been the all consuming aspect of the past three days. My team members and I spent much of Monday and Tuesday getting our room in order. I drilled many holes into concrete so we can hang pictures. The room actually looks great. Today, I had an all day department meeting and then another meeting at my daughter's school tonight. I also have inservices tomorrow (oops, today) and Friday. I am even TEACHING something to my colleagues tomorrow and am not ready. But, in all of this, I am holding up well. I know that I have pushed hard over the past three days, but I also feel like I am respecting my narcolepsy. I also know that I need to slow down tomorrow and Friday. If not, I will be in trouble in terms of my health. Part of what has been carrying me is my overwhelming excitement for the coming school year and the chance to work with these two amazing teachers.

The final piece of the last few days, and the most rewarding, is the chances that I have had to connect to other narcoleptics. Through Facebook, I have been dialoguing with a young potential narcoleptic half a world away. This incredible teen is facing a mountian of school work, disbelieving parents, and a lifetime of sleep issues, yet has managed to research narcolepsy and get into see a sleep specialist. I just hope things work out. Closer to home, I had the chance on Tuesday to connect with some incredible former students who also have narcolepsy. It is amazing to talk face-to-face with other narcoleptics. I know that we will continue to do that, and I have MOONS and the National Narcolepsy Network conference coming soon. While I regularly am forced to remember that I have a long road ahead of me - learning to accept and appreciate my narcolepsy, I love that it do have many places in my life for support. I even got to connect with one of my wonderful summer students before she heads off to college. We did that on Sunday - fortunately after I was much calmer about doors.

A final item before I finally hit the sack - I made an incredible observation the other day. In the coming school year, I prep with my team during period 2 and teach in periods 4, 5, 7 and 8. Periods 3 and 6 (while I will be at school) are MINE. My school is paying me to be there for one prep period and four teaching periods. As a result, I can use those other two periods for me, for yoga, for meditation, for naps (?) and certainly for correcting and work. But, the fact that I am claiming them is HUGE. I hope to work incredibly hard to protect MY time. We will see.