17 places I'd rather be than sitting in a lecture hall for 3 hours

1. at home, sitting on the couch with Ari on my lap; able to put her to bed and then hang out with my amazing husband, Andy, who I love and miss like the dickens
2. sleeping
3. doing crossword puzzles at the kitchen table
4. taking a hot bath in our antique clawfoot tub
5. getting my blog done (I sort of did that, I guess, though I still had to type it in once I got home)
6. doing crunches on the living room floor
7. the gym (oh gym... how I miss you)
8. teaching workshops with the lovely Ms. Claff
9. workshopping a new piece for the dance company I have not yet started, but which is increasingly clear in my mind
10. on vacation (Galena, Rome, Praiano, Springfield, Australia, New Zealand, Greece... just about anywhere!)
11. getting homework done
12. sitting in a living room with all my Neo-Futurist ladies, drinking tea and catching up
13. hangin' with all our Dad's Garage peeps in Atlanta
14. writing
15. sitting in front of a heater smothered in deliciously toasty fleece blankets
16. at home studying for my comps and NCE
17. DONE WITH SCHOOL

Caught Between Two Worlds

Every semester begins with a collective struggle for our family. We all strive to find some sort of equilibrium and to somehow deal with my extended absences for the majority of the week.

Ari seems to have the most difficulty adjusting, which makes sense because she is the only one who does not understand the end that theoretically justifies the various means we're committing to in order to get there. All she knows is mommy is suddenly gone every single day, sometimes for 9 to 10 hours of the 12 she is awake. Not such a great ratio.

The intense irony in all of it is that the whole reason I went back to school was so I could have more time with my family. I no longer wanted to be gone nights and weekends. I no longer wanted to put in 10-14 hour workdays. And I sometimes worry we have timed this all wrong because this seems to be the time Ari needs me most. Maybe I should have waited until she was older and in school full-time--then it might feel like we were both "working" and away from home during approximately the same stretches.

But you can not always know where you will end up when you set out upon a course of action. And certainly there are many, many, many families out there where both parents work and/or mom has to return to work right away in order to make sure they can make ends meet. So I do count my blessings... I really do. But the days when she's crying her little eyes out as I walk to the car sometimes break my heart and make me pause with immense doubt.