Balance and Reflection

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade...

This week I worked a solo session with a writer that felt that I actually helped him.  So, why since that insatiable high has the week turned into a complete migraine? Literally?!

Allow me to fill in some blanks...


For the first time this semester, I felt that this week gave me a purest test of what I'm capable of physically, mentally, academically, you name it.  In many ways, I feel like I let myself down.  Seriously, Thursday afternoon proved to be my breaking point----I had a very important appointment for my child and we ended up leaving because I blacked out--pain, nausea, weakness all rolled into this humiliating scene in front of my daughter, the nurses, and a Nurse Practitioner that I would rather not bear witness to me in this fashion.  Chalk it up to exhaustion, or whatever; I broke.  For two days, I've done nothing but succumb to the darkness, feeling like a failure to my family, to my fiction instructor for missing class (I NEVER MISS CLASS) to Melissa for being horribly late on this week's blog post.  It seems as if I may never get back on my feet.  The only aspect of this week that makes me feel the slightest bit better is the moment that Sierra offered me the chance to help when no one else was available.

A Business major scheduled a session with one of our veterans online.  The cosmos found it humorous to supply him a confirmation email for an appointment that didn't exist in our scheduler.  I was lucky enough to help him with his reflection on a group presentation.  We went over everything from clarity, flow, and a final run through on grammar--he had the unfortunate luck of a picky prof who marked down responses for every grammatical mistake regardless if the context allowed for it.  Needless to say, I was tested in every step we've been covering thus far in 303 and he made it easy.  We had a grand slam of a session.  He left with the feeling that he had all he needed to fulfill his assignment later that night and I rode on the high into Thursday---when I apparently crashed and burned at a time that normally I wouldn't allow for any weakness to befall me.  That was a time that my entire world revolved around these God forsaken appointments.  Don't get me wrong, they stop our lives in mid-twirl-- a moment to reflect on what a gift our daughter is to us, another moment to realize how precious time really is-- so to show weakness and post pone this appointment creates  it's own wave of nausea.  

At any rate, the extreme parallels that I witnessed this week has shown me the importance of taking better care of myself so that I may continue to provide for those who need me most.  My family always comes first but it's not the end of the world if they can carry some of the weight so that I can still be there for them after providing care to our clients and one another at the Writing Center.  Balance comes in many forms and starting next week, I need to better demonstrate that I have the capability to balance self-care, writing center care, peer care, and family care--and most of all, I need to allow others to help me achieve this balance.