Rythmn in Life

Life is full of rhythms. Every school year, I have to teach

plot to my students in the fiction part of our curriculum. It is incredible how plot can be boiled down to a similar series of events spanning generations of storytelling across the globe. Amazing, but is it unsurprising? I don’t believe so. It reflects life, the ebb and flow, and the cycles we live by. It forms the rhythms we move to everyday and those we seek in a good story. It is also why my work life has worked for me so well.

Teaching has patterns and rhythms from the curriculum to

the pacing of lessons, breaks, and exams. Now, we're on Christmas Break at school, and after that, the first round of state tests will hit. Steady work, play, steady work, hard work, play and on it goes. I have woven my writing life into a harmonious pattern with teaching. I go hardest on writing when there are breaks, because I have more time to dive deep. It all makes sense, even in the highs and lows. If I am in a slump in one place, the other puts my cart back on the track.

However, now, I am having to adapt to a new rhythm. It is

the unknown staccato of my health. If teaching was a violin and writing a cello, my health is a trumpet. Could you make that combo work? Probably, if the trumpet player could read music and didn’t have all sixteenth notes to play. It is forcing me to actually take time to rest, which would be okay if the rest did anything for me. I am at the point where I have given up everything but teaching and writing. Teaching and writing have gone from joy to necessity, teaching because it is the bill payer, and writing because it keeps my sanity. I have never thought of teaching as just a paycheck. I have passion for it. I love helping students, and I am still struggling with taking days off because I know how it affects them. However, my health has stolen the joy from the hard work of teaching because even if I am making a breakthrough with a student, all I can feel is how I am clawing to survive. With writing, the joy comes in little blips because I am fighting so hard to concentrate long enough to get something on the page. This is not where I want to be. However, it is a current rhythm in the song of my life.

Melodies shift, they evolve, and so much of life is riding the

new waves that come your way. I learned long ago that riding those currents is not about comparing to others or even your past self. You will always find someone better off or worse off than yourself, and that includes past and future you. I can’t say I have figured out this new tempo, but I can say my hope has not died. I know where my hope lies, and it is not something as ephemeral as my health or jobs.

The picture may change, but the value in living is still

there. It is an utter irony that this very concept was the theme of my most recent novel, which I am now actively querying. When I shaped the main thread question for my main character and gave him this very lesson to learn, I didn’t know I would soon have to learn it myself. Thank God, I am not dealing with half of what I put that character through, but that’s the power of story. You don’t have to walk the same path to have the same experience or ask the same questions.

We are all in this unknown song that is our lives, and we

are in the same cycles and arcs, though the events, locations, and people are different. We are all such miracles; our survival is a miracle, and the gifts we gather along the way are absolute miracles, and the stalwart people who see us through are the greatest miracles. Now, sometimes it does feel like it is too much to handle. I have no clue what my journey will be in 2026. Will an agent finally say yes? Will my sudden medical issue equally as suddenly disappear? Will I be able to give my students and family what they need while I am waiting on answers? How many books will I be able to write this year? God only knows. You probably have your own list of questions that you wish you could have the answers to now rather than later. Trust me, I get it. However, there is a faithfulness that secretly threads under all of these questions, a tempo master that can be relied on more than my ability to keep a beat. When reading a book, we don't want all the answers up front. I am content to wait because, I know the answers will be worth it when they arrive. What makes our lives, our stories, something we can, want to, and need to share is that life is full of rhythms that we all ride and repeat.