A friend of mine, Stacey, recently posted about her experience after a weekend retreat at Commonweal. She commented that one of her learnings was that ‘balance is a verb’ (her blog post is here: http://coffeemommy-at-work.blogspot.com/2016/03/balance-is-verb.html).

This idea of balance as a verb has got me thinking. It really resonates because I’ve been in search of the ever elusive balance. Of course, that is the thing that one seems to never have – a work-life balance – a balance between making money and spending it – and of course there is the act of balancing on one foot. It seems the latter balance is the one that is improving most in my life right now!

I was reflecting on it today and it occurred to me that balance is more of a mindset for me. I don’t think I’ll ever find a perfect ‘balance’ (as a noun) between my work and other things that I do. This is in part because I like the work that I do. Since cancer, one of the questions I ask myself regularly is ‘am I enjoying what I do?’ and the answer most of the time is yes.

These last couple of weeks things have gotten insanely crazy. We bought a place – a manufactured home (aka trailer). It needed a little work. We are finding that it actually needed a little more work than we anticipated. We are also being kicked out of the place we are renting. Our lease expires on April 17. We have a looming deadline to get the house ready for occupancy before our lease expires. I’ve booked movers for April 15, but have no clue how we will get our house packed up before the move.

And on top of all that I have end of semester approaching for all the classes I’m teaching. I have no clue how professors manage to teach a ‘full’ course load and still do any research!

So in many ways my balance is off. I’ve had to let a few things go, and postpone a few things, just to get back on track. That is when I remember that ‘balance is a verb’ and I need to actively do things to balance my life. It isn’t something that you search for and find, rather it is something you actively do.

Now to get back to work and demonstrate that I can indeed actively balance all that is on my plate and not drop anything!