And Then When You Reach the Top of the Hill, He Told Sisyphus, The Boulder Will Roll All the Way Back Down. Yup

Since January 1st, I've been on a marathon of meeting deadlines, applying for grants, getting classes ready, submitting conference proposals, finishing a dossier, and trying to maintain my sanity. Whenever I wanted to take a break I told myself, "If you don't push harder, you'll never be in the running. You've at least got to try."

And so, sleep has been put to the wayside. Normal sanity. An ebb and flow in life as the mania of emptying the ocean with a fork is the only way I know. That metaphor, I don't believe, works as nicely as the allegory of Sisyphus. Push that boulder up the hill only so it can roll back down.

In two weeks, the boulder has rolled back down.

Another round of "Nope, Nope, Nope," in the grant department, and I am feeling somewhat dejected. My mission is simple really - find funding to help marginalized kids and their teachers. The task is to get cash so that they can be supported. In an ideal world, one wouldn't need to work so hard to find resources for K-12 educators, but this is the United States. It's a dog-eat-dog world. If one is working to support refugee and immigrant youth, it's a pack of dogs-eat-dog world.

My first reaction is always disappointment that I have to share the news with all the people who collaborated to help a dream come alive. The dream isn't dead, but the support for it is. Then I think about the work that goes into simply being considered and I wonder, "Is this the best use of my time, or is there a better way to serve the communities I prefer working with?"

But the theme song from The Facts of Life keeps playing in my head and I know I need to dust myself off and begin to push that boulder back up the hill. The only control any of us have is with our attitude, and there's no use is feeling down. There's way too much work to be done.

Wow. It's March already?