Life: The most beautiful, yet the most complicated concept known to man, or woman. There's a certain timeline in life that we all go through including birth, childhood, teenage years, adulthood, and older adulthood. Each of these time periods have specific milestones that we celebrate such as the first word as a baby, learning to walk, first day of kindergarten, first day of high school, learning to drive, high school graduation, first day of college, college graduation, marriage, and the birth of our own child, but intertwined with the exciting parts of life are the not-so-exciting parts that become apparent as we get older.

When I was younger my parents used to tell me not to rush my childhood because I would have plenty of time to be an adult later on. Now as a twenty year old sophomore in college working to get into nursing school, I look back on the days of blanket forts, Barbies, and tea-parties with my stuffed animals and I so often wish I could go back to that simpler time, even just for a day. Instead, my life is now a jumbled mess of chaos and I'm always trying to juggle multiple things at once, but unfortunately, there's no "How to Adult 101" Handbook.

We all have our own responsibilities and some of us have more than others, making it that much harder to juggle. Family, friends, a relationship, my dog, school, work, church, cleaning, exercise, and personal time are just a few of the many consumers of my time. I have classes at set times everyday and I try to find time at least three days a week for going to the gym, I have to make time for helping family and friends with their needs, I of course make time for my boyfriend, I make time for walking the dog and cleaning my room, I spend a lot of time at the library studying, I often help with the youth group at my church, and in the midst of it all, I still have to find time for myself to eat, shower, sleep, and just relax. Clearly, I have more things to do than there are hours in the day and the "to do list" is always getting longer.

I have yet to master the art of juggling, but I have found techniques that make it easier, such as prioritizing. Instead of getting overwhelmed by everything I have to do, I have found it easier to tackle if I look at it on a smaller scale and instead of looking at everything as a whole, organizing all of it into separate categories and focusing in on one category at a time.

I group classes and homework together and make sure they get the appropriate amount of time, I block out time for cleaning and doing what I have to do at home, I plan out time for friends and family after I've done some studying, I fit in helping with church events as long as it doesn't interfere with my studying or other prior plans. Grouping everything into their appropriate categories has allowed me to distinguish between them and distribute my time properly, but while this method works for me, it still has its own downsides.

Unfortunately, having too many balls to juggle and not enough arms or too much to do and not enough hours in the day means that not everything always gets done. It can be a hard fact to accept and an even harder fact for people around you to accept, but I've found that the more I do for people, the more they expect of me and as I do more for them, the more unhappy I am. I finally learned that I can't do everything that's asked of me without running myself into an early grave and that sometimes I have to put some tasks on the back burner so I can focus my attention on more important tasks. This means I sometimes have to tell my friends "no" so I can study for an upcoming exam and even skip church to catch up on sleep, but that's okay.

I'm not perfect, but that's okay.

I'm not a professional juggler, I'm a busy college student trying to prioritize my way through this beautiful, crazy thing called "life."