This Week's Song

This week has been so incredibly difficult and all I can say is that when it rains, it sure does pour. This song doesn't entirely apply to my life. I'm not waiting for a lost love separated by ocean and nations. But I am waiting for a life and chapter that I need to come in life. I feel like I'm standing on a congested city street crying in the rain, aching and wallowing in pity, while people walk by going about their days. My life is passing me by and I'm just counting down the days until I don't have to deal with it anymore.

Conflicted

Sometimes all a girl needs is to feel needed. Whether it be as a babysitter for a family member, a confidant for a friend, or an adviser to the unsure. I think that's my biggest weakness. I like to feel needed, like things wouldn't work if I wasn't around. I think that's why I keep my ridiculous job after all the stunts they've pulled. I know if I disappear they will need me to organize things again. It's also why I try to balance so many roles at once. It makes me feel important.

When I feel alone and separated from my friends and family -something that happens too often at the start of the semester- I feel alone and cut off from what's important to me. It makes me weak and, above all else, I hate being weak.

Mid-Life...Early Twenties Crisis?

The last few days whenever I have an extra few minutes around the house or at work I pause to reflect my new teaching job. While there are definitely fun parts to teaching (stories to come soon enough) and the kids are cute and a handful, there are also moments I don't like. They aren't too big but there's one thing that's been popping up in my thoughts repeatedly.

I don't like planning lunches, I don't like staff meetings, I don't like teacher lounge discussions, I don't like whiny adults, and I certainly don't like planning my lessons weeks in advance, something I'm putting off doing.

I don't want to have a set schedule. I don't want every day to have a routine to it, the same thing every day, in the same boring order.

If this past week as teacher was a glimpse into my future in the career world then I want nothing to do with it. I'm not ready to settle down. I don't want to lead a boring life behind a desk telling children to pipe down. Now to just figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

One Type of Measurement

So the new semester has begun. Let's just get the obvious out of the way. At the beginning of each semester I turn into a bumbling, emotional, hopeless girl who cries herself to sleep and wishes nothing more than to drop out of school and give up on life. Well, it doesn't always just jump into that severity. It actually takes place over time. For a week or so I keep my head above things. Then my resolve crumbles to pieces in a matter of days. It's happened every semester.

I'm only one day into this semester and I'm incredibly dubious of the future because I'm not feeling the least bit terrified. I know there's scary stuff to come. I've been warned time after time about working while teaching. I mean, here I am, working a full-time teaching job from 7-3 each day and then rushing home so I can change and make it to work by 4 and get off at 9. Then sleep at 10:00. I don't know when I'll have time to eat. I don't know when I'll have time to plan for school. I don't know when I'll have time to pee. This happens each semester. Yet, this semester isn't overwhelming yet. I'm not terrified of running out of time for things. I'm terrified of what could happen because right now I feel optimistic. I like my job and I'm excited for it.

My optimism was short-lived though. Not because of homework or projects or bills or unplanned expenses. Rather, it was because I have to pack my lunch each night before school. When I graduate I'll be packing my meal for the next day for the rest of my life and, if I want to live my life to the fullest and experience things that no one else has, can I really do that packing lunches?