A week and a half ago, I took my daughter to the emergency room. She was having some crazy neurological symptoms that turned out to be a migraine. Between worrying for her and spending five hours or so with my rather bitter ex-husband, who may or may not ever forgive me for believing him four years ago when he told me we should separate after an argument didn’t go his way, I was emotionally drained. I came home and didn’t write or grade or do anything that required the slightest hum of effort.

My schedule is so stacked this semester that it took me an entire week to recover from that one day of lost work. If I was awake, I was reading, grading, writing, planning, teaching, or driving to and from these activities. And I was awake a lot. I averaged three hours of sleep a night from Thursday to Thursday. I returned one assignment to my students late, but didn’t miss a single class, or any other deadlines.

When I finally got myself caught up, I crashed. I slept for thirteen hours, and have hardly done any work since. I’m not behind, but I need to start putting myself to the task again tonight or I will get behind. My students have their first workshop tomorrow, I have assignments due, and I have two weeks to write about fifty to sixty pages of thesis.

The extremes remind me of when I used to do this on purpose.

I’ve stopped believing there’s any such thing as a normal family. Or maybe I’ve started believing that crazy is normal, and anything remotely resembling the postcard nuclear family is an eerie warning that we’re in Stepford territory. But I was avoiding coming to terms with my own family’s version of crazy when I was in high school and early college. I’m sure now that we’re no more dysfunctional than the next house over, but admitting it is the hardest step. Instead, I enrolled in a ridiculously challenging college prep program and, later, added to that an immersive involvement in my high school theater. In college, I convinced my advisors to let me take more than the full-time load on a regular basis. One semester I took eight classes and went away for a week-long watercolor workshop in the middle of it. I made up the work for all eight classes successfully and on time.

In short, I was addicted to my work, a workaholic. I was good at it, it was interesting, and it made me feel accomplished. It also kept the crumbling mirage of normalcy at a distance: I didn’t have time to look at my brother’s violent behavior, or my parents’ stops and starts as they coped with it and each other. I didn’t have time to look at how my own view of relationships was becoming warped, or find any value in myself outside of what I could accomplish. (To be fair to my ex, since I did mention his bitterness above, I brought my own unresolved load to our marriage just like he brought his.)

I began figuring out that my relationship to my work was unhealthy during my last semester at New College before I withdrew. But it would still be many years before I learned to strike a balance between the work and my life. I would pile on and pile on and pile on because I loved the work, and then I would break under the load I had built on my own back. I’d go numb and something like catatonic. I’d hit a wall, go down depressed, whatever you want to call it. It wasn’t good. I could barely move. I shut down for routine maintenance.

I don’t do this any more, not on purpose. Ever since having my daughter Zoie, I’ve been crawling my way toward balance, and for a few years now, I’ve mostly been there. Every so often I take on too much. More likely, though, when commitments are bigger than me, it has to do with things outside my control.

This semester, for instance. Until now, I’ve managed to have only one night away from my daughter for class in the MFA program. I scheduled around her, and if I had to be on campus more than one weeknight, the second one was on Thursday when she’s with her dad anyway. This semester is my last, so I didn’t have as much choice when registering. I had to fulfill particular requirements, and am now away from her for two nights. My teaching assignment has shifted from two days a week to five days a week due to funding issues. And then there are the circumstances: Zoie’s ER visit, car trouble, and life in general. The impossibility is not one that I sought this time. It’s what has been handed to me.

I’m grateful for the practice I’ve had; I think I might not make it through the program on time without it. But I don’t want to avoid my family any more. Once you accept that we’re all a little off, there’s nothing to fear. I adore my daughter and am madly in love with my partner. I need them like breath. I want them. When I don’t have enough time with them, I feel hollow. When I don’t have enough time with myself, I feel lonely. In the way that an extrovert would miss people, I miss sitting alone and thinking, or painting.

I’m gearing up to go back to work. I should have begun an hour and ten minutes ago. This post is an attempt to transition back in since I can’t focus right now.  I’ve had four days off (if you count days when I only teach, write quizzes, and hold extended office hours as off; if not, I’ve had one day off). And I still love my work. But after fighting so hard to learn to put it down and live, and pick it up again in moderation, it’s hard to bookend myself in these extremes. Once I start, it will be another marathon until Wednesday, not because I’ve put things off. I haven’t. It’s because my schedule demands it, a schedule I didn’t write.

The extremes are unsettling. They remind me of what I am not anymore, of what I don’t want to be again. But I suppose this has its benefits: I know for certain that I am not sick enough to want to live like this. I can do it for a couple months to finish my program. And I can let it act as a warning as I come out of the program and back into the world where I have to find employment again. I do not have to choose this.

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mad_mod_vintage/6369680607/sizes/s/