End-of-Semester Ninja

Ninja-Level: can perform complex tasks in conditions of high uncertainty, stress, and conflict.

If we consider the above definition (which is 100% accurate since I found it on the Internet), I've officially leveled up. I'm a ninja, dear readers. In the midst of high uncertainty, stress, and conflict, I'm still performing complex tasks.

Am I scaling walls? Launching metal stars with great accuracy by swiftly flicking my wrist? Lunging athletically while wielding an imposing sword? No, on all accounts. But, if you saw me with a rubric right now, you'd definitely think, "Dang. She's a ninja." (That is, if you could see me at all. Ninjas reside in the shadows, invisible.)

So far this week, I've listened to approximately 70 final student presentations. I've graded slightly over half of them. They're my air and sustenance right now: I breathe and eat final speeches. These are the walls I'm scaling.

It's all I do: I listen, I take notes, I think, I grade. I sift rubric criteria with swift flicks of my wrist, lunging in an imposing manner with my audio podcast feedback that's personalized to each and every student. Ninja-level, I tell you.

I also keep sharp in other ways, asking myself tough questions like, "Wait, why did I walk into this room?" and "What was I supposed to be doing right now?" Apparently, if I'm a ninja in one aspect of life (work), I'm a goldfish in all other areas.

In the moments when I'm not grading, I daydream about everything I want to do when I have a break from grading. So far on my list:

• Organize my entire closet by holding each piece of clothing to my heart and asking, "Does this spark joy?" while deliberating all the fashion choices I've ever made.
  
  
• Read books. What books, you ask? All of the books. ALL of them.
  
  
• Paint my dining room. Or maybe change the pictures on the walls. Or perhaps swap out the table cloth. I'm not sure. Something is off in that room. I can't put my finger on it,.
  
  
• Become a professional garage-saler, like those guys on American Pickers. Imagine me driving a van off into the distance like a modern-day treasure hunter. 

I'm so close. I can almost taste it.

Once I submit my final grades this upcoming weekend, I'll have two full weeks before classes start again. And during those two weeks, trust me, not only will I remember why I'm walking into rooms, but I also plan on being a ninja-level master at closet organization, book reading, dining room decorating, and garage saling.

You won't see it of course, because I'll be invisible. That's just the ninja way. 

You Always Feel This Way

I have pressing news: there are less than two weeks of classes remaining. Students and professors alike feel the heat. I check my inbox cautiously, opening it with a quick glace, narrowing my eyes as I scan for troubling subject lines. The process reminds me of when I work in my yard and need to dig up a rock. I always flip that thing over gingerly and spring back a foot or two, hoping there's nothing creepy-crawly underneath.

That's me with emails right now. I poke at them with a stick before engaging.

I've been ending semesters forever, though. Shouldn't I be better at this? Shouldn't I be impervious to the mental and emotional toll by now?

I asked myself these exact questions this week because I've been frustrated for not feeling "more together" (whatever that means). Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that not only do I always feel this way at the end of a semester, but also that it's okay.

It's okay to feel this way. A handful of students are clamoring for extra credit even though they haven't done the regular credit. Other students are hitting the panic button for reasons that have nothing to do with me or my class. Some are enduring legitimately extenuating circumstances. I hear about it all. It's all right there: messages in my email inbox, clusters of students waiting to talk with me after class.

Sometimes my head spins. It's impossible to manage all their things on top of all my things.

This is why I need to step back and remind myself that this is the norm. The last two weeks of the semester always feel this way. I repeat to myself this phrase: You're not doing anything wrong: you're just in the tunnel. This will pass.

And it always does. The semester always ends. The scrambles always unscramble. So right now, I simply take some deep breaths and ride it out.

Adorable DIY Earring Display Hanger

I made a new friend last year. She's beautiful and kind, spirited and joyful. She wears dangly earrings adorably and naturally, versus how I feel when I've attempted the feat: oh look, here's a person trying to pull off dangly earrings.

She's utterly charming, right down to her earrings.

Today is her birthday, and in order to celebrate her, I created a earring holder so she can display her collection in a streamlined fashion, versus keeping them tucked in a drawer. I started by finding a simple square picture frame. (From Goodwill, of course — I'm a thrifter by nature.)

After disassembling the frame and removing the glass, I used needle-nosed pliers to detach the metal prongs that held the original frame backing in place.

I carefully wiped the frame clean to remove any debris, let it dry, then spray painted it with two coats of ultra matte black paint.

Then the real fun began. I cut a piece of plastic mesh to fit the dimensions of the frame (mesh is carried at any craft store), then carefully used my staple gun to tack the mesh to the back of the frame. This ensured that the staples wouldn't be visible from the front.

The result: a streamlined and sleek frame that can be perched on a dresser or hung on a wall so my friend's dangly earrings can be displayed as artwork.

Dangly earrings are too cute to be hidden in a drawer, after all.

Wishing my sweet friend a very happy birthday!

Geese, Golf Carts, and Unexpected Laughter: A True Story About Depression

For a fair stretch of time a few years ago, I was depressed. I still functioned in the ways that you're expected to function when you're an adult. I worked. I parented. I showed up. But I was a shell of myself.

I'm a positive person by nature, and I have strong faith in the Lord. These factors aren't mutually exclusive from depression. With every bit of resolve and emotional fortitude left in me, I tried to not appear like I was struggling, even to myself.

I still remember the afternoon when I realized how long I had been lurking in the shadows and how dark those shadows had grown. My husband had invited me to ride along in the cart when he went golfing. (If golf were a love language, Joel would speak it fluently.) I accepted the invitation.

I don't recall if he played all 18 holes or just 9, but I do remember that we encountered a flock of geese wandering the course, which apparently is common on a golf course. Flying rats, Joel had called them. Then he steered the golf cart toward the next tee box, cutting through the middle of the gaggle of geese so they parted ways, honking and lifting a few feet off the ground, as we drove through their midst.

Something about the scene, I'm not exactly sure what, struck me as comical. I smiled. It was a genuine smile. Then, inexplicably, the situation morphed from mildly comical in my head into oddly, irrevocably, ridiculously comical. I mean, all those flapping geese wings! The honking! The random way they scattered! My smile brimmed over into a laugh, and the laugh wasn't forced or fake. I couldn't stop my shoulders from shaking and my chest from heaving in laughter simply because Joel had driven our golf cart between some geese.

While Joel walked to the tee box and I wiped tears from my eyes from my weird display of laughter, I noticed the blue of the sky and the green of the grass and the pleasing way the fence edged the side of the golf path. My breathing felt fuller, as if my lungs had been released from constriction. More than I could express in actual words, I felt something in my heart: I'm feeling a real feeling right now, and that feeling feels happy. This feeling had been absent for so long I hadn't known if I was capable of feeling it again. 

That's the moment I realize that I had been depressed. The resurgence of a normal feeling — in this case, happiness — even from such a peculiar source (honking geese, really?), highlighted that I hadn't had normal feelings in quite some time. I had been wrung out, hollow, numb. But here I was, shoulders shaking and tears brimming from laughter.

None of it made sense, but it was something, and something felt better than nothing, which had been my default.  

Since then, life hasn't been all rosy, of course, because life is messy, and people are messy, and circumstances can be hard. But I confidently can say that it's much better — or, more aptly, that I'm much better. I talked with my doctor to address the physical elements of depression. I sought guidance from a trusted counselor. I'm in much closer community with an amazing group of faithful friends than I was then, which has been invaluable. (Good friends love you through your things, and in turn, you love them through their things right back.) 

And God. Oh, the care and goodness of God to handle all my feelings and prayers, all the chaotic emotion and numbness that I flung his way and cast at His feet. What healing he's brought to my heart. Along with the psalmist, I can testify that the Lord is the lifter of my head.

The void of feeling, the numbness, the dearth of happiness — it wasn't permanent. It was temporary. I'll never forget that first glimmer of hope, one that came in the weirdest of ways: geese, a golf cart, and unexpected laughter.