Yesterday was a pretty good day for the most part. I decided to play it super chill at work and played Medeski, Martin and Wood when I was in my classroom. I decided to choose to be happy for a while and it seemed to work well until I was on my way to get my oil changed. I took a call and ended up having a rough couple of minutes trying to explain how this process of finding a new normal doesn’t look “ok” to some people. And I haven’t been ok, but I’m getting there. And I working on it.

After the oil change I headed up to my counseling appointment and actually had a really good session. I was able to talk to my counselor about the changes I’m making in how I communicate and the goals that I’m trying to make for myself as things begin to get really real with work and finalizing things and all of that. It isn’t easy, there are little landmines all over the place that catch me off guard but I’m doing a better job of managing them. We scheduled another appointment a month out, a good sign for me, and I came back home to play some music with my friend Bess.

This is a big thing. I haven’t played music regularly in many years and haven’t played with another musician in even longer. Bess brought over her cello and some snacks and we played around some of the tunes that I’ve been working through as I make my way into this new normal. We played and talked for a couple of hours and it was so nice to be able to hear new things in the songs I’ve been listening to for months, or in some cases years. I was able to sing songs I haven’t been able to make in through until recently.

Today was the first day back with students all day and things went alright. I was really self conscious for the first time in a long time about how I was doing as a teacher, change brings that kind of self-reflection and it wasn’t necessarily bad for me to have those jitters but it made things a little more emotionally exhausting than I thought. I had some students ask about pets that I used to mention, I wasn’t going into it. We’ve got some new scheduling things happening at work so my schedule is also really different than it has been for the last 5 years at least so there is a certain amount of adjustment in that area as well. I’ve got my lunch scheduled at 10:50 am this year rather than noon as it has been in the past, again just have to get used to the newness.

I had a nice chat with a colleague who reached out this summer to offer some support after going through some rough times in the recent past. It is good to have people around who understand what the challenges, even down to eating regularly, that go with working through mental health issues. For me, the biggest push to keep eating regularly is to be able to keep up my activity level as much as possible and if that is enough of a reason to stay physically healthy, that is good enough for me.

I’m volunteering at the social run tonight so I have to go and get some miles in before the run starts at 8. Ready for the end of the really hot days, it makes running harder but the work must continue. I told my students we were going to start getting weird in class starting tomorrow so I’ve got to be ready to play some games and do some warmups to get the blood and energy flowing.