Moving up, Moving on, Moving Forward

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Its been a while...

I know Ive been MIA lately, but my life has taken some quick and thunderous turns lately and I've been swamped with stuff!!!!

Lots of weddings this summer and fall keeping us busy.

Ive been training for an AmeriCorps position in Denver.

I've been turning my life upside down....


and life, its pretty darn good.

Doubts

I'm in a weird place in my life. One that feels unfulfilling and negative. I don't like to be in this place. I have a million things on my plate at the moment and yet find myself feeling underwhelmed and lethargic, as though I have nothing going on. I have bills that need to be paid, and not enough money coming in to cover the expenses. In addition to that I have been plagued lately with silly insecurities and self-doubt that is absolutely driving me crazy.

The first one is this nagging idea that I am not pulling my own weight. That because of my laziness or inability to be successful the boy is working double time. He is subjected to undue stress and anxiety because I cannot seem to find an appropriate source of income. I almost feel like there is this voice inside my head yelling horrible things at me. "YOU are causing him to work harder than he needs to. YOU need to find a REAL job and stop waiting around for your IDEAL job. YOU are making worthless contributions." Its frustrating and negative and makes me feel like I am sinking into a bottomless pit.

I am surrounded by bajillions of wonderfully successful women who seem to be on this gilded pathway where they sing happy songs and poop rainbows all while raising their family, managing their finances and cooking healthy dinners. What am I doing so incorrectly? Its not that I have no desire to find a job, I just can't bring myself to swallow the idea of a career outside of the education world.

My second issue is this battle I am having with my inner OCD self. I have this problem where I feel like my life should be following a plan. Its the same plan I have had in my head for years, and the moment that my life strays from the pathway of the plan I suddenly feel like a failure. Cue scary horror movie music and loud heartbeat sounds.

I expected to be married by now. I expected to have a home of my own and maybe even a child. I expected that I would be well settled into my career. Not a single one of those things proves true. The fact that my life is not going according to plan feels like the beginning pebble of an avalanche and the anxiety I feel as I watch that pebble start to roll is almost unbearable.

In any given day I flip through a mental roll-a-dex of 100+ things that I could do instead. I could join the peace corps, I could join the circus, I could go back to school, I could move to another state.....each one brings on its own wave of nausea.....if only I were brave enough to start all over. if only I were brave enough to admit defeat and move on. If only things were mapped out in black and white.

And then come the feelings of self doubt again, obviously it must be something I am personally doing wrong.

In my head I know that I need to wait for Gods plan and his timing and not my own. In my head I know that things will eventually work out.

But the rest of me..... it thinks its a failure.

Waiting on Spring

They say that good things come to those who wait. I'm ready for those good things to come my way.

Its been a rough few years. This last one being a real doozy. I'm pretty sure that now is the time for some serious and significant changes in my life. Are you ready to come along for a wild ride?

I don't promise to update very much. Life has been getting in the way of daily writing lately. But I will tell you that things are about to start rolling and life is about to be much, much different. As soon as I get brave enough to take that first step. 

I am making progress....

Rather than post my new years resloutions, which I probably won't accomplish, I'm going to post my updated Busket List...Things in BOLD, I've already accomplished. I have so many more things I want to do....
Drive across the country ~ Do a Breast Cancer Walk ~ Try Escargot ~ Make a peaceful home for my family ~ Own a Horse ~ Step foot on each of the seven continents ~ Step foot in each of the 50 States ~ Perfect a chocolate chip cookie recipe ~ Go dog sledding ~ Drink at an Irish Pub, in Ireland ~ Mentor someone ~ Learn to bartend ~ Have a professional family portrait taken ~ Learn to crochet ~ Christen a boat ~ Have a front porch swing ~ Learn to write grants ~ Finish a quilt ~ Write thank you notes to my teachers ~ Have a career I love ~ Create habits in my family of being loving and exhibiting loving gestures ~ Flirt, be unashamed ~ Plant a garden, actually take care of it ~ Visit Rome~Play tennis ~ Tithe ~ See Mt. Rushmore~Begin a tradition of celebrating the mundane: champagne on the 3rd of every month perhaps? ~ Learn to make jelly ~ Go clamming ~ Take a canoe trip ~ Stand on the Great Wall of China ~ See a wild kangaroo ~ Help someone get into college ~ French bread and coffee in a café in FRANCE ~ Kiss someone under the shadow of Big Ben ~ Scuba Dive ~ Exercise regularly ~ Zip line through the jungle ~ See the Mayan ruins ~ Stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon~Plant flowers for a stranger ~ Cook Thanksgiving dinner ~ Finish some of my unfinished projects ~ Return to scrapbooking ~ Make a difference ~ Become a foster parent ~ Love myself ~ Train a puppy ~ Build a house ~ Take up painting ~ Be conversational in at least one other language ~ Write a book ~ Swim with dolphins ~ Stand by the leaning tower~ Make a million dollars ~ Go white water rafting ~ Walk on stilts ~Build a tree house ~ Be an extra in a major film ~ Live in a major city ~ Learn how to accept a compliment ~ Ride a camel in the desert ~ Be my own boss ~ Learn how to Waltz ~ Own something Prada ~Teach someone to read ~ Visit Walden Pond ~ Visit Canterbury Cathedral ~ Rio: Carnival ~ Spend a Christmas on the Beach away from the chaos of the holidays ~ Take a hot air balloon ride ~ Appreciate my life ~ Kiss the Blarney stone ~ Fall in love ~ Fall out of love…appreciate the difference ~ See the Mona Lisa’s smile ~ Learn to play the banjo ~ Be in awe of Stonehenge ~ Appreciate Emily Bronte ~ Ride a pogo stick ~ Get my PhD ~ Join the Peace Corps ~ Donate blood ~ Vacation at Martha’s Vineyard ~ Sleep in a castle ~ Go skinny dipping ~ Help build a habitat for humanity house ~ Get a Labrador ~ USE my savings account ~ Have floor to ceiling library shelves ~ Get married ~ Ask a stranger to dinner ~ Have a full pantry ~Raise a child ~ Stop worrying ~ Swim in the worlds largest swimming pool (Chile) ~ Go deep sea fishing ~ Become debt free ~ Take surfing lessons ~ Be in a horse show ~ Adopt a kitten ~ Have one of those great recipes that people ask for ~ Count my blessings ~Write a letter to the editor, about something I’m passionate about ~ Take more pictures ~ Be inspired ~ Pray daily ~ Become a “regular” in some little bar or café ~ Refinish a piece of furniture ~ Learn how to rope cattle ~ Be proud of myself ~ Hike a mountain, camp there, hike down ~ Read all of the books on my “to read” list ~ Teach a college course ~ Find a church I love ~ Find a church I love close to home ~ Learn how to change a tire ~ See Venice ~ Stop putting things off ~ Be joyful~ Make a difference ~ Write a letter to everyone I love ~ Hang more pictures in my home ~ Create a killer website ~ Be a fabulous teacher ~

Well, now what?

 I really hate "what ifs".....

Doritos, Chocolate Ice Cream and Mysteries Unknown

My students made me crazy, and I miss that.

            Last year at this time I was a disaster. It was the beginning of the school year and I should have been just falling into a routine with my students, diving into the chaos of teaching Shakespeare and enjoying my day to day responsibilities as a high school English teacher. Instead I was teetering on the brink of a serious depression.

            That spring I had been laid off from my full time teaching position. I spent the majority of my summer applying for jobs and eating my weight in chocolate ice cream. I felt like I was a failure; I couldn’t come to terms with the idea that I wasn’t following my well thought out “life-plan” and I spent a good portion of every day crying. I tried to play it cool, hiding my feelings under sarcasm, scathing remarks about my bosses and funny jokes about unemployment. My friends from work tried really hard not to complain about their jobs or their students in front of me, and I tried really hard not to take my bitterness out on them despite the fact that I was regularly monopolizing conversation with tales of self pity. My relationships with loved ones suffered, my romantic life started a serious downward spiral, I ate a copious amount of chocolate, always had plenty of beer on hand and suddenly my dryer started shrinking all my pants. I slept a lot, I cried a lot, and I didn’t spend any time counting my blessings, but rather cursing life, God and anyone else I could blame for my dreams being dashed.

            I signed up for the Susan G. Komen 3-day, which is a 60 mile charitable walk for breast cancer research. I started training, and had something to look forward to. This helped my mental outlook immensely, but I still felt like I was missing something. I cried less, and ate less, (good thing because buying a new wardrobe when one is unemployed is incredibly difficult) but I wasn’t feeling fulfilled or happy or productive. I found myself becoming increasingly antisocial. I preferred laying in bed most of the day, rather than risking having to explain to random people and neighbors that “No, I didn’t take a sick day today, I was laid off in June”. 

            Shrinks and doctors and other smart people align being laid off to the same emotions one suffers when coping with the death of a loved one. I don’t think that’s true, but I did feel pretty crummy for an incredibly long while.

            In late December last year, I took over the position of a colleague while she went out for maternity leave.  I wasn’t overly thrilled about the position, I didn’t agree with the classroom management in place, I didn’t think I liked many of her students, and I wasn’t thrilled about getting up before 5am to make it to a zero-period class. Before I started I was convinced that I wouldn’t like it, but would suffer through for the paycheck and how nice it would look added to my resume. I was cranky that it wasn’t “my” classroom, bitter that I didn’t have a “real job” and not excited to be spending days away from my couch. I did not intend to like this temporary position; I was not prepared for the whirlwind that was the next 6 months.

            I am 100% convinced that the Writing Studio where I began working was one of the circles of hell. That first week or so I continually felt like I was in the middle of a tornado, or a high speed police chase. I had small groups of kids, no more than 15 or so to a class, and six classes. But there was nothing small about these kids. They lived with the intensity of running with the bulls. To make matters worse, I couldn’t really tell them apart at first, they were a swirling mass of matching hoodies and unwelcoming faces. To be honest, I planned to make it through the year and then pretend they didn’t exist. Even looking over the class rosters made me shudder, so many kids I didn’t know, or didn’t like.

            The classroom was a free-for-all when I arrived. Students would come and go as they pleased, never asking for permission. There were no real rules, no set curriculum, and no lesson plans. There were no consequences for bad behavior, bad language or late homework assignments. Students freely ignored me, lay on the floor and slept, or came to class 20 minutes late. They would text during class, leave early and skip other classes to sit in the studio at a computer. It was bedlam. It was their norm, many of them had been taking studio classes for years, and their expectations were to “work at their own pace” and “make their own decisions for success”….which loosely translated to “do jack-shit-nothing”. Students who had previously gotten A’s in class couldn’t tell me on what their grade was based, they could show me no previously graded work to which I could compare their current work, and they couldn’t explain what criteria in their day to day classes accounted for their good grades. Students who had been failing for their previous teacher were doing quite well for me, and yet they weren’t doing anything differently than they hade before. And just when I had decided not to care, and to let things just continue to fall apart something happened, something happened to me.  

            I had gone home one night in early January to discover that everything at home had literally and figuratively fallen apart. There was a hole in the ceiling below the shower which had been leaking water all day to the laundry room below. My dog had eaten my incredibly expensive, Nine West, knee high, stiletto boots. I had a melt down. My life was not at all what I wanted it to be. I was not where I wanted to be in my relationship, in my home or in my career. I was not being fulfilled professionally or personally. I think I dug through the stacks of books on my book shelves until I found my Bible that day. But I didn’t read it. I have no idea why I even looked for it. I just held it, in my lap, like a cat. I certainly hadn’t been relying on God lately, only blaming him for life’s shortcomings. I hadn’t been praying, or faithful, or interested in what God’s plan might be for me. Somehow though, I knew I needed to change that. I wasn’t ready to accept that I might need his help, or feeling like I could **gasp** have faith that things would be ok, but it was that acclaimed turning point, that moment that everyone looks for in which you realize that something’s gotta give.  I went to my mom’s that night, tucked myself into the bed in my childhood bedroom with a number of well worn teddy bears, and prayed for help for what may have been the first time in months and months. I started to change my life, my outlook, and my future. One, tiny, babystep at a time.

            I decided that it was time to kick ass and take names. I began to revamp the Writing Studio. My rules were simple: 1) Do your work or I will pick on you mercilessly. 2) Yes, we are going to read this book even if no one, including myself, likes it. 3) You will not make me look like an idiot because you know nothing. 4) Don’t lie to me. 5) If you are annoying or lazy you may not spend your free periods in this room. If you are quiet and/or productive you may stay. 6) Chocolate will win you brownie points. These rules did not go over well. There was mutiny for a while. I hated my life.

             Then, suddenly, somewhere between going through my purse and talking about tampons, in hearing too much about their sex lives and not enough about their homework, in between their breakups and break downs, amidst their crappy writing and their whining, they burrowed into one of the deepest parts of my life and my heart. These kids were interesting, and heart wrenching. They needed so much more than the half-assed crap I was giving them. More time, more honesty, more support, more reality, more of me. They morphed from the monsters I thought they were into something between friends and little sisters, some mixture of student and an extension of my own, younger self.  My thoughts and schedule became more and more wrapped up in their problems and successes, their papers and prom, and the writing studio was not only more productive than it had been before, but still remained that safe landing place for this strange and swirling hurricane group of kids.

            I began to love them, not because they were the most upstanding group of kids in the school, because they weren’t, but because they were mine. In loving them, I slowly began to love me too. These kids reminded me why I am me. They brought out the good teacher in me, they forced me to stop moping around and start living again. These kids want to be successful and they dream big dreams and make big mistakes and they love fiercely, they’re honest and smart and funny. They make me smile. Sometimes they’d tell me everything, and sometimes they’d try not to tell me the things they didn’t think I should know, but then the other kids would tell me anyway. I think by now I know all the things they think I don’t.  I love them more than they know. They changed my life, and I didn’t expect them to.

            That bizarre and lovely group of teenagers who let me in on their secrets and fears and who cared about mine, changed the miserable path my life was taking. They uncovered something good in me that had begun to get grown over with adult fears, mortgage payments and bitterness.  They taught me way more than I taught them, they gave me more than I gave them, and I am eternally grateful. I was totally unprepared for the way in which these kids impacted my life, but I’m so glad they did.

            Some of them are high school seniors this year and I know that they will be successful because of the triumphs they had last year. Most of them are in their first year of college, and embarking on the exciting journey of their “real” life. I’m so excited for them, and proud that I have had a tiny part in their lives.

            Even though I find myself still unemployed, I take pride in all of their small successes, I love that they continue to inform me of their lives’ twists and turns, and I have hope for the future, because of them.  They told me about life as they saw it, which was a lot more beautiful than the way I was seeing it.

Its time for Autumn

I love fall. I love how crisp the air gets, all I want to go is go outside and breathe it all it. I love sweaters and jeans. I love apples and apple pie and all things apple-y and warm and gooey. I love pumpkins, watching them grow and turn orange, and carving them. I love autumn flavored coffees that appear in all my favorite coffee shops. I especially love the leaves changing. I even like the days getting shorter, and the boys coming out of the fields sooner, and snuggling on the couch earlier with a movie and popcorn and cider. I love making comfort foods that just don't seem right in the summer like chili, shepherds pie and roasted turkey. I love the promise of soon to come snow and looking forward to Christmas. I love Halloween and all the chocolate-y goodness that comes with it. Fall makes me happy.

Now, if only I could keep reminding myself that I am happy when its time to pay our bills!

Nothing happened today, wanna hear all about it?

I knew for sure it was going to be One of Those Days when I woke up at 4:45, realized it was still raining and could not go back to sleep. One would think that getting up at 4:45 am would lead to a day of productivity.....nope. Pouting. It rained all day. I wanted to go outside for a walk. Sadie wanted to go outside and play. Penny refused to go outside to pee. All three of us were miserable and cooped up inside.

The rest of my morning consisted of: go down stairs, make coffee. Go up stairs, put on pants. Go down stairs, drink coffee. Go upstairs, change pants because they are so tight they restrict breathing. Go downstairs, boot up computer to possibly edit mountains of wedding photos. Give up on wearing pants. Go upstairs and put pajamas back on. Go downstairs and google teaching jobs. Cry. Get more coffee. Add baileys to coffee. Keep crying. Add Jameson to coffee. Feel better. Google silly online comic strips. Google apartments with room for a horse. Google houses for sale that I could never afford. Google pictures of cats. Edit pictures of Heather's beautiful wedding. Consider the fact that I am pushing thirty. Start to almost cry again. Sip coffee. Decide its time to shower. Go upstairs. Strip naked. Get in shower. Realize there is no hot water. Go downstairs. Realize I am still naked. Run upstairs. Try really hard not to cry. I mean really, really hard.
Look around my disaster of a bedroom and silently judge myself on all shortcomings. Put on fat pants and giant hoodie. Realize that I have neither fed the horse, the dogs or myself. Silently judge myself on my lack of ambition, personal hygiene and time management skills. Consider going to a walk in the rain. Consider driving anywhere but here. Consider filing away all the receipts I have been saving for my photo business. Lay on couch eating Doritos instead. Go upstairs to find clothes to put in laundry. Sit at computer and stare at the screen. Watch it rain. Watch Sadie pace in bored circles. Watch a fly buzz around the sink full of dirty dishes. Force myself to edit more wedding photos. Write this blog.

I am lucky to be inside and dry. I am lucky that I found pants that fit. I am lucky that I have copious amounts of both coffee and booze in the house. Those are all the blessings I can count today.

I think I will take a nap.