The word of the summer: reconnect

Dear readers,

I apologize for the absence. Who knew teaching high school would be so time consuming? On top of being too time consuming to blog, it was actually too time consuming to keep myself moving in big positive steps with my health, which leads me to this letter to you faithful readers.

I am back. I am actually back, not saying I am back, and then never updating back, but back back. I am going to update this blog at least once a week for the entire summer, and if I get myself into the habit of doing it over the summer, I believe I will continue it once the next school begins. I am taking the same approach to working out. This year was a world of ups and downs as far as my physical health went and it is time to grab a hold of this elusive mistress I call health, and put a damn ring on it. My plan is simply to be active every day this summer. I want to be active in the morning and then again mid day or later. The goal is to walk/run every morning and then strength train/swim later in every day. I am determined to be in much better shape in a few months. I want to get to the point where I cannot handle a day where I am not active. The walking around campus is nice, but it did not get my where I want to go. Where do I want to go? I want to be healthy. That goal has not changed. Yes, I have learned to accept myself for my flaws, and strengths, but the goal is walk up a flight of stairs and be able to carry on a conversation without gasping for breath. The goal is to not feel like I am going to hurt myself getting out of bed. The goal is to lessen the strain on my knees, legs, and feet. The goal is to feel like I am going to live a long healthy life and I cannot do that the way I have been living for most of my life. It is time to reconnect with my body.

Besides the working out, I am continuing to experiment with food. I have maintained a fairly good diet over the last few months, but there were weeks when I was eating doughnuts for breakfast, and not eating lunch and then eating an awful dinner. I am not shooting for perfection, but I am shooting for better. My biggest fear (outside of clowns) is getting too complacent. I have a damn excellent life right now. I have the girl, the job, the cats, the friends. I mean what else could a guy truly need? Well, I can always get better. With food, Martina and I are trying to incorporate more vegetables into our diet. It is the summer of vegetables! Woo hoo! I love cooking and it is time to reconnect with that love of cooking, and eating healthy things that are tasty.

Outside of the physical health, it is time to reconnect to what feeds my soul. I am going to read more than a book a week this summer. Reading has long been one of my favorite leisurely activities and there are times when I get too involved in video games, television, or movies, that I forget how much I love to sit and read all day long. I have a lengthy list of books to read this summer and I am going to put a giant dent in it. I am going to reconnect with my writer's voice. Last year I wrote a novella that I am incredibly proud of and that the 6 people who have read it (would be 7 if someone would ever finish it. You know who you are!) have told me is great. Earlier this year I wrote a 3 page short story, that I think is one of the best things I have ever written. I shared it with my Pre-AP students on the last day of school, and they were all captivated by it, and it pumped me up. This summer, I want to think big...like big big. I am going to tackle a novel. I am going to research and start my novel with the hopes that when summer ends, I will keep writing.

Lastly in my summer of reconnecting, I am going to be out in the world more. The goal is to never go more than 2 days of spending the day alone in my apartment. I want to reconnect with the people in my life that I love, and I want to reconnect with the people I could love. This is my time to make an impact in my own life. I want to take day trips to places I have never been. I want to experience happy hours, and food from restaurants I have never been to before. I want to see people I have not seen in years, and take in their stories face to face, and not just through Facebook. If you live in the Sacramento area and want someone to go do things with, contact me. I am down.

I am blessed to be in a career that has a few months off every year. As much as the statement "I'm blessed" irks some dear friends, I am blessed. I have a career that I love and that challenges me, but also allows me to reboot my system. I can take this summer to do all of the things I laid out above, and still find time to be a better teacher next year. My last goal is to do just that: teach myself to be a better teacher. Research methods, find better, more rigorous activities and lessons, and ways to more fully engage my students.

I will reconnect with myself this summer and in doing so, I am hoping to reconnect to the joy I live for. I hope that my prolonged absence did not lose me any readers, but if it did, I hope I can reconnect with them and I hope that everyone comes along this journey with me. It has been a blast thus far, and it is only going to get better.

Sincerely,

Kyle

P.S. I will have another post this week dealing with a specific issue.