Rise and Fight again!

I'm sorry for not writing in a while... summer has flown by. Good, but quick. With the time drawing to a close, I have found myself under incomprehensible stress. Deadlines and pressures piled up brick after heavy brick. How much can you hold? Where is the breaking point? What happens when much becomes too much? When do we curse that abominable straw upon your back!

Perhaps under stress is when we see our true character. After all the walls are crushed under an external weigh, we begin to understand who we really are. What do you do you are overwhelmed? Do you sit around and mope or get out and do something? Is that the best thing we can do? Can we do anything else?

A student poked at a hole in my wall saying, "This isn't the Ms. Ure I know! You are independent! You are strong!" As hard as we may all try, there isn't a perfect battlement. I'm reminded of a poem my mom had posted in her quote cupboard. It is a revision of a famous Scottish poem/proverb attributed to many and yet none:

I am wounded, Sir Andrew cried,

Wounded but not yet slain,

I'll lie down and bleed a while,

Before I rise and fight again!

It is a cruel misconception that says we can't lie down and bleed a while. In our culture, perfection is demand by everyone around us with our worst critic in ourselves. We set ourselves up for failure time and time again. I'm all for the 'get over it and get to work' attitude but I'm starting to think finding the balance is more crucial. Dealing with stress doesn't mean ignoring it and piling more on our plate as we so often do (its a girl thing, according to Dr. John Gray). Perhaps the stronger person is the one that knows when to lie down a while before we try to fight our battles again. If we go too hard too fast, we crash and burn.

There comes a time and a place where we must actually deal with the issues, or rise and fight again! What do you girls do to decompress and then tackle the challenges? Any tips? Cry it out, sleep it off, and find clarity in the morning? Who do you turn to? Can we lie down too long? Do you find shelter under another rock? What works and what doesn't?

Its ok if we need to lie down a while and take care of our battle wounds - as long as we rise and fight again!

PS - I am so Scottish!

If you are feeling magical, I need: 15 pages of thesis, 30 pages of reading and accompanying assignment, a house/apartment with 2 bedrooms, a bed, tables, chairs, couch, dresser,w/d, vacuum, truck to move it all, new back complete without aches and pains - or just another ice pack, oh yah, a new wallet with credit cards, ids, cash, and recommend, write new curriculum, clean the fish tank, decorate a classroom, pack a room into a small car (or said truck), restraint from killing current roommates, patience to wait for new roommate, tires rotated...is that all?