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The Balance of Life


I have always had a problem with achieving balance in my life. I always, and have always, had more to do than I could ever get done. I can’t remember the last time I ever had the sense of having everything finished. Honestly, I’m not sure achieving that would be a good thing for me. 

 Always feeling like there’s something left to do motivates me to get out of bed in the morning. It keeps me going when I feel blue. The trick is not getting overwhelmed. I haven’t quite mastered that trick yet! 

 I have a family member that is forever asking me, “Don’t you get bored?” How could I possibly get bored! I get tired. I get so I don’t feel like doing anything more – but I don’t get bored. There are simply too many things I want to do! 

 What a blessing! 

 The balance, however, is the thing that makes me struggle. Since I was small, there has been this work ethic instilled in me. You don’t play until the work is finished. Yet, is the work ever finished? NO it is NOT! Grow up Heather! 

 Right now I have a white board full of HPS news stories that need to be written. Each one, even if only a paragraph long, will require several phone calls and e-mails to get the necessary quotes, facts and photos. 

 I’m almost caught up on phone calls. I think I only have about six to return right now. 

 I’m worried because the HPS Network really needs to raise about $35,000 by July to maintain our current budget. That’s just to maintain. It doesn’t mean adding other things that we all want to add, like funding more research. 

 The American Thoracic Society meeting is coming up and I’m trying to work on things that will leverage that expense to get the biggest bang for our buck. 

 We want to launch a special newsletter for our big donors. I haven’t even had time to think about working on that. 

 Then there are the daily things like the listservs, facebook and twitter. In this age, we’ve had to spend more time on this to keep our organization relevant. 

 I could go on and on……..

 And then there’s personal work that needs to be done. Even though I threw away a large trash bag of paper from my file cabinet just a few weeks ago, there’s more to do! The dust in my house seems unreasonable. The laundry needs to be done. I need to vacuum, go to the store etc. I have errands to run. 

 What about the things I want to do – the things I enjoy? It seems as though I rarely get to these. (Thus the lack of blogging in recent years.) 

 I feel like my writing skills are getting rusty. I have ideas for several children’s books I’d like to write and illustrate, but have never found the time to do. I have an idea for a series of short stories I’d like to write. I enjoy my knitting. I want to paint. I want to eat better and go to the gym. I want to learn to sing new songs. I have several books I want to read. 

 Yet, as hard as it is for me to maintain a reasonable life balance, I’m just me – a single old maid! Grin! I so admire my friends with families and so many other responsibilities. If they can do it, why can’t I? 

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