Towing: a Story.

Rehearsal had been going well. I’m kind of slow when it comes to picking up choreography, so I was really pleased that we’d knocked out most of the moves for “Sh-boom” as performed in Crybaby. I ran down to my car to grab my Drag Bag, which had a CD so that we could bring the music to the open-mic drag show we’d be performing at. I ran back upstairs.

Approaching Equilibria.

Things are starting to calm down, sort of. Or are at least gearing up to calm down. I think. Maybe.

Coping Mechanism: Cycle Commute Pondering Time.

Alright, so cycling to work has been awesome. It’s let me work on my legs, which I’m pretty sure I’ve been neglecting for what seems like years [which has probably been actually about eighteen months, max]. For the first couple of weeks of cycle-commuting, my legs would start burning after just a couple of miles, as if battery acid were coursing just underneath my skin. Now, my legs tire less easily [if even slightly so]. I have started to feel less-worn after my commutes, to bounce back more quickly and completely. I find myself wanting the ride; this weekend, I wanted the ride by mid-Sunday, and was sad I didn’t have work to ride to [or free time to take a ride] on Monday, and was almost-mad that I had to drive in today [to make it to other engagements after work on time].

But cycle-commuting has more than just positive physical externalities [ha] for me. Cycling to work gives me between twenty and thirty minutes of time for whatever thinking I’d like to engage in. No music, no phone, no others to talk to [except for quick “heys” said to other passing cyclists and walkers/joggers]. I used to have regular commutes that ranged between forty-five and seventy-five minutes that I took in my car. I can confidently say that I could not reliably think as much as I do now during those lengthier commutes, probably due to distractions [music, mobile phone, passengers].

The commute time is my own personal time, where I haven’t anyone else to focus on. I can think about whatever I’d like to during the rides, even if that whatever is actually nothing. I’ve thought about lots of innanities. I’ve thought about plenty of hefty things. [The $64,000 Questions don’t stop coming, don’t stop jockeying with each other to occupy my mind for stretches of time, stretches of road; from 49th to Nasco, all along Shoal Creek, between stopsigns, during those laps I take when the thoughts won’t loose their visegrip hold.]

More about this later, as Cycle Commute Pondering Time makes more headway on my innanities and my $64,000 Questions.

Upheaval.

I never experienced the veracity of the saying “bad things come in threes” until just recently. Glynn and Dr. Hime were far enough away from Vinny that I didn’t count them as three; instead, it was two and one. My previous breakups were usually all by their onesies, though I think one might’ve been accompanied by a short illness around the same time.

This time, I think I understand. While it isn’t three “bad things”, per se, it is three major stressors all colliding at once and running me down like a string of defensive linemen [I’m not much of a football fan, so I hope that analogy holds]. Work has been difficult in ways that I didn’t plan for it to be, as well as in the ways I did make mental preparations for. Sister just left for college. A relationship I was in just ended [or, if we want to get all metaphysical, changed forms/energies].

Back-to-School Anxiety.

I’m getting stressed out about my job. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks going to trainings and meetings and listening to specialist after specialist talk about what working with the students is like, and the challenges of one of my students in particular. I’m tired of that. I just want to get the students, to see what they’re like, to learn about them from them.

Transitions.

There’s a reminder that I heard a lot at the school while I worked there [I suspect that I’ll be back there once the new school year kicks off]; transition periods are hard. For some students, that meant Mondays after returning to campus from a weekend at home. For others, it was time spent in transit or switching from one activity to another. Regardless, some students require what is politely deemed “more support” during transition periods. This extra support can range from leading a student through processing hirs feelings [without explicitly naming the processing as such, since many students are reticent to use coping mechanisms that are openly labeled as such], to lowering expectations, giving more time to transition, and being generally more understanding of any irritability or anxiety on the student’s part. Sometimes we all need “more support”.