Giving Myself Grace

This afternoon, I took a three hour nap. It's a Thursday.  And, yes, I anticipate my supervisor seeing this post. I plan to share it with him.

I decided to start this blog today, almost three weeks into my district's closure for COVID-19, because I have been thinking about my role in this crisis and how to handle being a mom and librarian from home.  My son is 6, so he does very few things on his own yet.  Normally, he is at school while my husband, who is a special education teacher, and I are working.  Now, those lines are blurred, as they are for so many!

I am a good school librarian, if I do say so myself.  I am good enough to be friends (or at least acquaintances) with some of the best school librarians in the country.  The good thing about this is that I can learn so much from these amazing people.  The down side is that I compare myself to their greatness. I work diligently to provide resources, suggestions, and support for the educators and learners in my district, but as the only certified librarian in the district, my contact with students is limited.  Now, as we work through this transition to digital/ remote/ crisis learning, I see great things my colleagues are doing, and I know that my work is still only a fraction of the depth of what it could be. That goes for both my librarian colleagues and my educator colleagues, who are now educating their own children and mine.

It is strange to admit, even to myself, that I am also a school library leader, both here in Wyoming and across the country.  It is times like this that I question why. In the hours that I sit on my couch trying to keep up with emails, Zoom meetings, and the flood of resources vendors are sharing, the Imposter Syndrome really kicks in.  It is then that I must remember that my colleagues have different jobs in different areas with different environments and different relationships with coworkers and learners.  

I must give myself Grace. People say this all the time, but it is certainly easier said than done.  What does this mean?  I still have to work, teach my son, support my husband, be a mom, and take care of myself.  It means I have to kick the imposter syndrome.  It means I have to try not to envy what others are doing, but use their expertise when it fits. It means that sometimes I need to sit down and play with my son, read for myself, walk my dogs, take time to clean the house, call my mom, and let go a little. It means that I must allow my child to binge-watch Yu-gi-oh for the 100th time and spend an hour on "the triangle" (YouTube Kids) so I can get some work done. It means that when the stress of all of this change wears me out mentally and physically, I must allow myself to take a nap on a Thursday afternoon.