I hate running — but I love it after I’ve completed the workout for the day. Unfortunately, that hate-love relationship can also describe my relationship with my husband.
This past week — on my vacation, mind you — I enjoyed running on the beach. In a hate-love sort of way. I may have mentioned I hate running? But I do love it after I’m done — and that loving feeling seems to last long enough for me to start a run again the next day. And then the hate begins anew. But it was vacation, and my other fitness options (i.e. my health club group exercise classes) weren’t available. However, my personal trainer (i.e. my husband) was. Running with him appeared a viable option.
I would describe my relationship with my husband as more of a loved-love-love-hate-love relationship. I loved him enough to marry him. I love him enough to stay married to him. I love the idea of having a physical therapist/personal trainer for my husband. I just hate having to do what he says (i.e. run, Sara, run). I love him again after the exercise is a thing of the past.
(Did I mention I actually lost weight over this vacation?)
But let me focus on the hate-love relationship with running/ my husband. It is hard to separate the two.
Do you know how parents will urge a child just learning to swim to “swim to me,” as they designate a minuscule distance in the pool? And then when the child commits to that distance, the parent keeps backing farther and farther away?
That is my husband’s method for personal training.
Our beautiful and talented Aqua Zumba instructor, Anita. (No, that amazing waterfall was not that location for our class, but it could be when our class travels to Costa Rica to visit Anita next year.)
“I have some news to tell you.”
My Aqua Zumba teacher gathered the class together in the pool before we began our morning workout.
“I’m moving back to Costa Rica at the end of July.”
While I was happy for her — she would be returning to her family and working with an ecotourism business — I was in dismay. Aqua Zumba is my favorite fitness class offered at the health club; it was my own version of “So You Think You Can Dance,” because when camouflaged by the water, I followed Anita’s cues and thought I could dance — and I knew I could work hard. I imagined the sweat Anita produced on dry land as she led us was reciprocated by my action in the pool. It was a great way to start the day, and, as we’d had a few (inferior) substitute teachers along the way, I was doubtful that anyone could replace Anita.
My belief that no one could adequately replace her caused me dismay — and helped me better understand the feelings of the students I won’t have in the fall.
“Chelsea sent me a message telling me to beg you not to leave,” my son Adam told me recently.
Chelsea is one of my homeroom students. I’ve had the same class for what we call “homebase” since they began their ninth grade year. This, their senior and final year at the Academy, they will have a different teacher for homebase and for English.
This is the first summer I haven’t spent preparing for an upcoming school year in some manner. I knew from the beginning of last school year that it would be my last year teaching, and so I worked from Day 1 to leave a legacy, to do my utmost to leave behind a path easily followed by another teacher, to make sure the students to whom I would not teach English would return to find the new teacher prepared and competent (and, likely, better than I ever was).
The first time I saw this photograph, it was on my sister-in-law’s cell phone. She said my nephew had shot the photo, but since that time I have seen it in various places online and am now unsure as to the photographer. However, I am clear as to the Creator of the sunset — and the alligator, visible in the clouds and in the Florida waters mentioned in this post.
“Well, if I don’t get eaten by an alligator, I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
That was the marketing associate’s attempt at humor when we discussed her abbreviated schedule on Friday. She was just directing a photo shoot in the morning — but it was at a local lake known for its alligator population, thus her comment. I countered her humor in kind, knowing there was no real danger from the alligators.
“No, you can’t get eaten by an alligator,” I protested. “I don’t know enough yet.”
“Yes, you do!” she responded, cheerfully, not offended at all by my selfish reasoning. “So that settles it. You know enough, so if I get eaten by an alligator, everything’s OK.”
“No,” I disagreed.
I completely disagreed. As a newbie, I view my trainer and supervisor as “an ever present help in time of trouble,” and I was anticipating working without her presence with less than enthusiasm. She would be gone Friday morning and then the whole of the following week.
“I don’t know enough,” I pressed. “The more I know, the more I realize I don’t know.”
And with that thought quickly followed another, though unexpressed.
“My work life is so much like the Christian life.”
Over the weeks, my supervisor had praised me numerous times for the job I was doing. More than once she’d greeted me enthusiastically with “I’m so glad you’re here,” almost as if she were surprised I’d returned for more. The interns I supervised seemed to be warming up to me. My colleagues in the office were slowly introducing themselves, some saying they’d heard I’d jumped right in and was doing well. I loved what I was doing, and I’d been growing more and more confident in my position as a technical editor the past three weeks — even to the point of believing that I had some ideas that could make operations run more smoothly.
But that particular day had been tougher than usual at work for me — good overall, but with enough reminders that I am not yet perfect at what I do. It was just a moment (or two, or three) in which I saw I didn’t know everything or do everything perfectly. So by 5 p.m., I was ready to call it a day. Not a bad day. Certainly, a productive day. But a day that made me a little uncomfortable with myself and more dependent on following the Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) manual. In fact, it was a day in which work was a lot like the Christian life. (And I know I’m saying that as if it were a bad thing.)
I was beginning to understand that the more I know about my job, the more I realize I don’t know. Wisely, my boss didn’t just hand me the entire workload I will eventually carry. She gave me training; she handed me the printed manuals; she gave me space to read those manuals and get my bearings; she walked me through processes; and she let me set out on my own. Sometimes I asked a lot of questions, sometimes I timidly ventured into new territory, and sometimes I plunged ahead, thinking I knew what to do — only to find out I didn’t know as much as I thought I did.
It’s the calm after the storm. Exams are taken. Yearbooks are signed. Ceremonies and celebrations applauded. The countdown completed. The … Continue reading A teacher’s lament…
I hate running — but I love it after I’ve completed the workout for the day. Unfortunately, that hate-love relationship can also describe my relationship with my husband.
All Things Work Together 