Been Awhile...so much has changed

I know, it's been awhile. It's been such a long while I forgot my login name and password.

Not that anyone cares. I write this to clear my head, which of late is very crowded.

I woke up at 5 this morning. I'm bummed that I couldn't sleep longer especially since it's Saturday and I really have no reason to get up early. But here I am, awake, my head spinning and my feet cold.

Inside the crowded space I call my head is the following:

I must get up and begin reading my text for animal massage school. Yes, I've enrolled and the materials arrived the other day so with yellow highlighter I've been reading about dog senses and cat's whiskers (among other things) and the whole time I'm worried that I'm not going to remember a thing when it comes time to take the end of the chapter quiz.

There is no food in the house. What shall we have for breakfast?

The house needs a good cleaning. When will I find time to do that?

I must go to work at 11 this morning. Yes, Saturday work, which is really an apprenticeship at this point and perhaps this is what crowds my brain the most. I applied for a job working at a hydrotherapy pool for dogs. I got the job (to my joyous surprise) and have been working their about 12 hours a week. Every moment I'm exposed to so many new things that I'm both giddy and overwhelmed. I can I learn all of this?

Sheila, my new boss, is phenomenal. She knows so much and is extremely thoughtful and patient teaching me. I catch on quickly to the routines none of which have anything to do with the dog's rehabilitation. Things like turning on the jets, cleaning the filters, washing the floors, and returning phone calls. I find myself gravitating to those tasks because when we're in the pool, an aging or injured dog between us, I am flooded with vocabulary I am trying desperately to understand. Proprioception, Plantar Extension, Plantar Flexion, Hyper tonicity and on and on and on.

Then there are the techniques for swimming the dog -- using the pulley system, not using it; balancing the dog by holding the outer back toes or rotating the tail between your fingers; holding the dog against the side of the pool using your knees and hips; inverting the dog and pressing their spine against your belly; medial lines and lateral lines and on and on and on.

But what makes it hard to sleep is not the learning so much as it is the fact that I have four jobs going at once. I am still teaching in the mornings, then walking dogs in the middle of the day, and then working at the pool in the afternoons and evenings. Oh, and let's not forget the article I'm supposed to write for school (part of my job description), which makes a total of four jobs.

I know it's temporary. I know the teaching will end on June 12 and for that I am eternally grateful. But getting to June 12 feels like a long wait. I just want to be in the pool learning more or sitting on my couch reading about gait analysis and massage techniques so when I'm walking dogs or working in the pool I will feel confident.

Yes, that's it. A lack of confidence wakes me up each morning and in the pit of my stomach, I can feel this excited hesitancy bubbling away, which activates my brain and gets the thoughts and lists ticking away at 5 in the morning. So today, even though it's Saturday and I'm allowed to sleep in, I got up.

And let's not forget that my sister flies in this afternoon. What psychic energy that's going to take. Energy I don't feel like I have right now. Still, I'll do my best to be present and polite, to listen to her endless stories about her work and her cats and god knows what else.

I'm glad I have a few hours at the pool this morning. Despite all the challenges of learning new information and even feeling a lack of confidence, when I'm in the pool working with a dog, there is a calm that comes over me. It's primal in many regards and it feels exactly like what I need right now in my life. Something grounding. Something where my brain and body must connect in ways that doesn't happen when I teach or even when I walk dogs or even when I write.

Of course, I'm tired now. Ready to go back to bed, but instead I'll figure out something for breakfast and move through the day one foot in front of the other.