I’m grateful for random pleasant conversation with a fellow commuter on my ride to work this morning.
I’m grateful that I apparently look about 10 years younger than I really am. I sometimes wonder if people are blowing smoke up my behind, but this girl had no reason to do that – she just assumed I was her age. 🙂
I’m grateful I get to see K this weekend, even if it’s not as much time as either of us would like. And I’m grateful to JC for the crash space.
I wish I knew how to turn off the CONSTANT noise in my head.
I feel too much and I think too much and I just can’t turn it off. I wake in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep because my brain starts churning.
I feel like River Tam sometimes, without the super intelligence or grace. Just the overwhelming feeling of everything and the inability to process it.
I overthink every single situation, over-analyze every decision. Agonize over things I cannot control.
Somebody please, tell me how to make it stop…
One of these days I will remember to let the good stuff come back to me.
I put a lot of time, energy and (when I have it) money into taking care of the people close to me. And yet, I have such a hard time accepting help in return. Like I am somehow insufficient if I ever accept help, especially in monetary form. I had to admit to K today that while I would still be coming out to visit, I would need to keep it very low budget while we were out there. Her response was exactly what I needed to hear: my own words repeated back to me.
Be kind to yourself.
About a month ago I modeled for a photo project she is doing. As part of said project she asked each of her models to pose with a sign displaying a short message to the other women who see these photos. I deliberated for a few days, wanting to be profound yet succinct, without plagiarizing anyone. In the end I settled on “Be kind to yourself.” This isn’t the first time she’s lovingly tossed that back at me either.
I tend to be very hard on myself when I don’t feel like I’m measuring up. Whether it’s at work, or school, or… anything really. I never got mad if I lost at something if I felt I did my best, but the competition was just better or luckier. I only ever really kicked myself if I thought I didn’t work hard enough, or if I didn’t take advantage of opportunities that presented themselves.
But I need to take my own advice and just relax sometimes. There will always be setbacks and rough patches. I need to get over my pride and be gracious when people who love me want to help out.
That moment when your girlfriend asks you to swap your nipple ring for a barbel because she’s terrified of her tongue piercing getting caught and tearing it. I like the asthetic of the ring so much better, but already having one of them ripped out (accidentally, by previous girlfriend) was enough. So it’s off to the piercer for some different jewelry.
I’m also still stuck on my next tattoo. I have an idea of what I want, but it’s not fully formed. I get to hang with K’s friend and tattoo artist next weekend. I’m hoping she can give me some ideas.
I feel like I want to do something else to shake things up. I don’t think I want to pierce anything else (except to redo the left nipple), but I’m not sure what else. Dye my hair maybe? A few highlights? *shrug* I actually like my grays, so I’m not looking to get rid of those. Maybe the small wrist tattoo before the big back piece, if I can finally decide on that one. Yeah… something that represents cycles and/or balance. Interconnectivity. Ooh… ideas forming… 😉
Money has been a constant struggle since I changed careers. I don’t actually make enough to pay all my bills every month. I have friends and family that help on occasion – treating out to dinner, or even loaning me cash, which I hate like hell to take, despite needing it pretty desperately. Last night was such an occasion on two levels.
Mom and dad gave me money out of my savings. I have been trying not to touch it, but with the weddings, car registration changeover and teaching certifications, there were a lot of extra expenses this month that left me with about $30 in my bank account and more than a week to go till payday. But the shocker was my aunt. She came up to me saying “Don’t be mad at me” as she hugged me and pressed money into my hand.Â
Apparently mom has made it known to her and (or how else would she have known?) that I’m pretty damn broke. Which annoys me as a point of pride, but I apparently need to get over that. I was confused. I didn’t want pity money. But no. It was because despite my hardship I drove down to Philly for my cousin (her daughter)’s shower a while back. It apparently meant so much to them that they wanted to give me gas money for making the trip. I was still surprised… of course I came. She’s family. Her only response was “Exactly, and family helps each other out.” What could I do but hug her and thank her?
Fast forward to today, and an unrelated pick me up.
I was looking for something in the crawl space, which of course turned into organizing the crawl space once I had to pull everything out of there anyway. In the course of this project I came across a box of plaques from college. I hadn’t bothered hanging them up when I moved. They were old honors, and at the time I felt like I should be moving past that. But with all the work I’m doing in grad school, and how much I kick myself sometimes, I decided they needed to go up. To remind me how much I’ve done, and how far I’ve come.Â
When they hear my workload between teaching and grad school, a lot of people’s reaction is something like “wow, I don’t know how you do it.” My response is usually either “neither do I” or “I have to.”
And that’s not me downplaying myself. Those statements are both true. I really don’t know how I pull it off sometimes. The rest of my life is slipping away though. I don’t spend near enough time with family, friends or my girlfriend. My house is usually messy. I haven’t been at least sort-of tired since August.
I remember asking some coworkers in the same program who also have small children how they’re doing this and they give the same answer. “I guess when you have to, you figure out a way.”
Ok, I’m going to brag for five minutes, because this is really the only place I can do it without insulting colleagues.
For the last few months I’ve wondered if people were kind of blowing smoke up my behind, telling me how good I am for a first year teacher. But in our latest class we had to review each other’s class videos utilizing some specific questioning techniques. I thought mine was ok. Not fantastic necessarily, but certainly good enough to submit.Â
Then I watched some of my colleague’s videos. Some were at least as good as mine, if not better, but those were certainly in the minority. Most were either so full of student misbehavior I couldn’t tell if they were using the technique. Others were obviously staged with just a few students.
Maybe I DO need to cut myself a little slack and believe my advisor when she says things like “this is very high level feedback, so we can push you to the next level.”
Now, that’s not to say I’m the best teacher that has ever lived or that I can’t get better. Shit, I know I still have leaps and bounds to go. I kind of feel like I will always feel that way. Like I can always learn more, and get better.Â
I’m grateful that I have a career that I love and am proud of.
I’m grateful to be in graduate school to further that career. Even if the deadlines and stress do make me nuts.
I’m grateful for a supportive significant other who likewise has a career she is passionate about.
I’m grateful for caring friends who help me out.
Sometimes I need to remind myself how far I’ve come from the mousy adolescent with no friends that let herself be bullied and tormented. I left for high school and decided I was going to reinvent myself… and I did! I had lots of friends, positions in various extra-curriculars and student government, senior council, prom committee…
College was much the same. I decided I was hot shit and lo and behold I was! Big woman on campus, I was known and liked by fellow students and administration. I remember as a senior walking into the dean’s office and telling him in no uncertain terms how I felt about a dangerous situation at work. And I did so without fear or apprehension.
So when did I lose that? When did all those insecurities come back to haunt me? When did I become afraid of being rejected again? Where did that sass go? Why am I now only able to manifest that bravado when I put on horns, ears and a leather corset? Is it because now that I’m here, I’m afraid of falling back down? Is it because now there’s something to lose?
“When you have more to lose, making decisions gets harder.”
It may sound elementary now, but I have to thank the lovely K for finally making me feel like less of an idiot for being as indecisive as I am. When you have little to nothing to lose by making a somewhat risky decision, well… why not? But when a wrong move can have much more dire consequences, it’s really hard to make that leap.
And I’ve had enough times in my life where the risks usually lose and “slow and steady wins the race” proves out more often than not. The teaching job has been the biggest leap of faith I’ve made in a very long time. Not because I didn’t think I’d be good at it, but because I had to give up a decent paying job for the CHANCE of being hired as a teacher. But I was so miserable in the other job that taking the leap became worth it. Yes, I had a salary to lose, but I had my sanity to gain.
So far, it’s paid off well for me. Maybe not financially (at least, not yet), but in the long run this will be best for me. Yes, it’s hard work, but anything worth doing usually is. It’s a lot of work away from work, but I had that with the last job and didn’t get anything for it. And I was on call for all kinds of stupidity. Now I can manage my own workload… which I hope and pray will become easier to do as the years go on and I get better at this and have a bigger array of tools and tricks at my disposal.
Oh, and vacations. Lord, I needed those… 😉
But there are other areas of life where I’m a little more inclined to take a leap.
Silver Tides 