Give and Take

My last post was titled "Patience is a Virtue."  Congratulations to anyone who reads this blog.  You are officially virtuous, seeing as you've had to wait an entire month for a new blog entry.  However, I am promising (once again) that I will be more consistent.  That is finally starting to look like more of a possibility with my life reaching a more even keel and a more normal pace.  By normal, of course, I mean my version of normal, which includes having three jobs.  I believe "normal" to be a sliding scale.  Everybody's is just a little different.  Anyway, in spite of my lack of commitment to the blog, I have made what I think are great strides toward grownup-hood in the past month.

• I attended a teacher's fair and filled out ten different district applications in hopes of finding my dream teaching position.
• I got my first interview (YAY!!)
• I bought cute, yet professional, teacher clothes for teacher's fair and interview mentioned above.  
• I started waking up at 5:30 AM every single morning to make time for the gym. 
• And last, and most definitely my favorite, I have started taking time to cook dinner.  From scratch.

I know this may seem like a very small list of very mundane accomplishments, but I was proud of myself.  Mostly because all of these things required me to make time for myself.  Recently, I was talking to a close friend about some people within our group of friends.  We were discussing how relationships are all about the "give and take."  Some people are more naturally givers, while others are takers.  The key to a strong, positive friendship, romantic relationship, or really any relationship is to strike the balance between the give and the take.  After we talked, I started thinking about the "give and take" in terms of my relationship with myself.  I realized that I have been being a "taker."  I was taking away time that I desperately needed for myself and giving to other things and commitments (i.e. work, school, errands, etc.) so that I have rarely, over the past four years, had any time for myself.

So, this very small list of very mundane accomplishments is the beginning of my decision to be more of a giver.  Yes, I will give myself time to go have coffee with a friend I've missed.  Yes, I will give myself time to work out and feel good about myself.  Yes, I will give myself time to improve my spirituality and my intellect by reading and thinking and praying.  I have found that, as an adult, it is SO easy to fill every block of time with an activity, to block out the possibility of having to think about scary things like an unknown future.  But you know what?  I'm going to give myself time for that, too, because I think the unknown is starting to look less and less scary and more and more exciting.