Balancing Act

When I was a young kid, we had a fun game called Tip-it.  (See picture below) Yes.  I played the first edition which was copyrighted in 1965 so you do the math!  You had to remove disks that had different point values off of the free-moving base while making sure an Acrobat didn’t fall off of his perch.  The first person to lift disks worth a total of 100 points from the spinning and bouncing base without making the man crash won the game. The entire time that poor little guy was standing on his head just waiting for the inevitable fall.  The games by-line was “the wackiest balancing game ever” and I believed it. Oh, the innocence of youth!

At this moment, I am feeling like the Tip-it man.  I am standing on my head with very wide eyes.  My balancing perch swayed quite a bit when I first decided to earn life points for going to the gym, Aquasize, and nutritional eating.  I have shared in other posts how afraid I was of falling at that time; however, these choices have become routine and are no longer rocking my balancing perch.  (In fact, I would like to think that all those stomach crunches have increased my core strength and improved my balance!)

It’s time to try to add one more thing to my balancing game.  I have a life goal to earn a master’s degree, and I am half way to that goal.  When I take a class, I get very little sleep, and every free minute is spent reading, in on-line discussions, and writing papers.  I love it, but my perch spins fast and if it wasn’t for my family’s willingness to pitch in and help with home responsibilities, I couldn’t hold on.  This time there will be an even bigger challenge.  How can I possibly get all my school work done and continue with my trips to the gym and pool?  For my other classes, I got up at 5 am to write, and I would work late into the night after I got off work.  Now my early mornings are for the gym and evenings include the pool.  My new health priority means I will not quit my new habits, and my men can’t exercise for me.   In fact, I wouldn’t want them to even if they could.  (Wow – what have I become?) I am carefully studying my schedule and trying to determine how I can balance church, work, my family, the abused children I spend time with, and my health, which are non-negotiable, and still pursue the dream of my masters.  I haven’t figured it out so my Tip-it base isn’t rocking yet, but my head sure is spinning just thinking about it   Praying for wisdom to know how to hold on to life – the wackiest balancing game ever.