Having It All

There was once a time when I thought you could have it all.  A fantasy land I believed existed when you became an adult.  While I was growing up I believed that every adult I knew had everything they wanted; except maybe money.  Regardless, the adults had jobs and friends and were in serious relationships.  To me having a job was way better than school could ever be.  Friends were sweet when you were an adult because you could see whatever movie you wanted to and you could drive yourself to dinner and you could order three deserts and not a main entree if you wanted.  Then there was the illusive serious relationship.  Every adult had one, or if they didn’t they just had fun.  The serious relationship was never very much work.  Just seemed to be that it was someone who was around to hang out with you, and love you and cook dinner for you sometimes.  There was no work involved.  It was just everything.

The older I get the more I realize that having it all is impossible.  At any given moment in my life I may have certain pieces of the puzzle, but I can never have the whole puzzle all at once.

The illusions I had when I was younger are all now reality and I realize that being a grown up and having it all is hard work, dedication, often involves lots of ice cream, and the picking up of the broken pieces when errors are made.  Having a job sucks.  School was way easier, and WAY more fun.  And relationships, serious-committed long-term intense relationships.  Well those are hard.  Reallllly effing hard, and I don’t even want to get into that right now.

Victoria Secret

Today a student of mine asked me if I was a Victoria Secret model before becoming a teacher.  While it should normally be flattering and taken as a compliment, the kid was 13.  I wasn’t quite sure how to respond appropriately, what to say as a punishment, or what to do if this happens again in the future.

I guess I shouldn’t be too offended.  There will come a day where  no one will think I could ever be a Victoria Secret model, so I should enjoy it while I can.

Really Starting

Tomorrow I embark on the start of a process I have been on since the second grade.  Tomorrow I will officially be a teacher!! It's been a long hard road to get where I am but I am so grateful for every step it's taken for me to accomplish this goal.  I have been all over the country, working all sorts of jobs from Subway to a law firm in the heart of downtown Chicago.  I have worked at nearly 6 different scrapbooking stores, and Best Buy and my aunt and uncle's campground.  I spent four-and-a-half years at Colorado State University, and then moved to California only to find out I still had to take more classes to completely get my B.A.  Then I failed a class I was taking to finish my B.A. so I had to retake it.  So my degree says I graduated a year and a half after I actually walked across the graduation stage.

Then I got a job as a mail clerk at a law firm, and was managing a scrapbooking store.  Sometimes working from 8 a.m. to midnight (or later).  I certainly don't miss those days.  I got promoted at the law firm and laid off at the scrapbooking store, so I was working at normal 9-5 for about a year. 

Then I decided I still wanted to live a little so over a year ago I moved to Chicago on a whim and thought I might pursue my teaching career there.  It seemed to hard so I went back to working at a law firm and a scrapbooking store for fun.  I gave up on pursuing education in Illinois and focused on coming back to CA because I knew that's where I wanted to be.  I was torn because I would be leaving my boyfriend of a year behind. 

Not but two weeks after I returned to California, I started a credential program that was 5 hours a day, for six and a half weeks straight, while working two jobs.  My brain was running on overload for more than most of the summer.  Although I couldn't think straight I knew I was on the right path because I would stay up til 1 or 2 or some nights until 3 a.m. just thinking about all the information I had learned that day in class and how I could apply it in my own classroom.

Then two weeks after my intense summer school program was over I was offered a job at a middle school that I happily accepted. 

Granted, this is the abridged version of the story.  Through all of these experiences there was much heart break, and there were times of immense laughter and joy.  While I was grateful for the friends and family I had, I was always missing some one or something from some other place I once knew.   I had to face choices and decisions on my own that I knew would change my life forever.  There were moments where I didn't know left from right or up from down.  There were times when I cried myself to sleep and then there were days that felt like I was overcome with joy at the opportunities I was given the chance to see and be a part of.  I can't say it was a rollercoaster ride for me to get where I am, I would refer to it more as a season of changes, seasons of love and heartbreak, seasons of growth and rebirth, mostly what it took me to get where I am is strength and hope and faith.   Strength that my dreams were achievable.  Strength to overcome to hurdles that life through in my way.  Mostly my journey, thus far, has required strength to believe in myself.  And although strength was enough to get me through some of the harder moments it was really hope and faith that the desires in my heart were real and true and honest and that to deny these stirrings and gifts would be a waste of God-given talents and treasures.  There are some things I know I cannot do well,  they mostly consist of all things science related, and or anything that requires spelling (I don't know what I would do without spell check).  I also am terrible at the following things: running, working out on a regular basis, being subtle, and lying.  Did I mention I am terrible at running?

Regardless, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I was born to be a teacher.  I have had the desire since I was 8 years old and it has only grown stronger with age.  I am 100% blessed to have had this calling since I was so young.

Hopefully I don't screw up too bad tomorrow.  :)  I am just glad to really be starting what I dreamed so long ago.

Here's hoping.

Settling vs. Settling Down

Maybe it's the fact that I am getting older, or the fact that I just moved away from my boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend?),  or maybe it's because I'm on Tylenol PM.  Regardless, I have been thinking a lot about marriage and settling down and being happy with someone.  I want to know if it really exists.  Like can you really be happy and passionate about someone every single day for the rest of your life, or do you have to settle for someone who brings you comfort and security? 

Being the passionate person that I am, I always dreamed of being with someone just as passionate as me.  And of course, he would be passionate about exactly the same things as me.  He would be a photographer, and like to listen to the same kind of music, and he'd want to go out on exactly the nights I want to go out and he would want to stay in on exactly the nights that I want to stay in.  And he would be passionate about art and life and creativity.  I dreamed he would write me epic love poems about me and come home with hand made nick-knacks for me every night.  I believed that I would find someone who valued the exact same things as me, in exactly the same scale.   He would be romantic, and sweet, and funny, and caring and everything my little heart could have ever wanted.  But I am starting to wonder if this is where my problem is...

How can anyone be exactly everything I need them to be at every moment of every day?  How can I expect someone to know and feel and want and need and be passionate in exactly the same fashion as me?  That's absurd, right?...

But I guess my bigger question is where do I draw the line.  What things am I willing to give up?  What things can't i live without?  What things am I okay not getting from my boyfriend and/or lover and/or husband.  What things can I bring to myself without someone else's help?  And if I let go of some of those things that I need, is that settling?  or just settling down?

Part of this grown up process has taught me that I can't expect things from people.  I have to be able to provide them to myself and I have to be content in who I am and what I can do to make myself feel joy and loved and happy even if someone else isn't doing it for me.  I have to foster my creativity, I have to follow my own dreams, and I have to listen to my own heart's callings. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that my last relationship gave me things I never had before: comfort, security, trust, loyalty, honesty and safety.  So for me,  it got boring.  There was no passion, or fire, or any real sparks on a daily basis.  Not to say that there was no passion at all, but it wasn't very frequent.  I want both, passion every day and trust every day.  But I don't know if both things exist.  My previous dysfunctional (but passionate) relationships were exciting because I never knew what to expect.  There was always some sort of danger, or harm or insecurity just lurking in the corner waiting to come out and attack.  There was passion because there was nothing else in those relationships.  So, I am just wondering if you can have passion and security?  Do they exist together?  And if I give up on one or the other am I settling or settling down?

Nearing the End

I am spending my last few days in Chicago sort of....confused.  Since I am finding it hard to put it into my own words, here are some quotes that touch on what I am feeling:

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways."

"To be all that is possible we must attempt the impossible.  To be all that we can be, we must dream of being more."

"Going backwards to recover that which was left behind in the rush."

"Never are you more aware of what you want than when you are experiencing what you don't want"

I Could Really Use a Wish Right Now

This morning while riding the train to work a song came on my ipod that got me thinking about the "good ol days."  Well, actually I got started thinking about the "gool ol days" yesterday when a long lost friend was texting me about how much fun we used to have.  Randomly going to Hawaii on a whim.  Deciding the day before that we should do it.  Going to the beach for bonfires.  Getting kicked off the beach for bonfires. Spending all night awake talking and watching movies and swimming in the pool until our fingers and toes pruned up.  These were the moments in time where time seemed endless.  Where life seemed infinite and we could do anything in the world that we wanted to do.   We were young and carefree and life was SIMPLE.

Somehow, along the way, things turned complicated and hard and there was no more ignorance or naivety.   We graduated college and we got real jobs, my friend I was talking to even had a baby (very unexpectedly, and with the completely wrong person).  Nonetheless, the carefree days of then somehow turned into the burdensome days of today.  Life's simple nuances have been replaced with "real jobs" and responsibilities.

I don't know how the innocence was just gone one day.  But it was.  And these days when I wake up, I see EVERYTHING.  The pain, the sadness, the worries that I never used to have.  Although I tend to have a good attitude and always look for the positive, it doesn't mean I don't notice the bad.  I used to not even worry back then.  I never had anxiety.  I never felt confused.  Back then I was 20 and loving summer.  I was doing whatever the wind blew my way.  I was riding on the back of motorcycles, and painting my nails hot orange and wearing a size 4.   

Now, I don't know, it's just harder.  The choices I make now seem to inevitably affect the rest of my life.  That thought, that weight, just seem almost unbearable at times.  Like, "how do I know I am making the right choice?"  and "What if this hurts too much?" or "What if I can't ever get over that...?"

Which brings me to the song that really hit home this morning. The song is a new song by b.o.b. called "airplanes":

I could use a dream or a genie or a wish
To go back to a place much simpler than this...

Somebody take me back to the days
Before this was a job
Before I got payed
Before it ever matter what I had in my bank...

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now.

I know I won't ever get to wish on airplanes, and I know that no matter how hard I try there will never be a way to get back to the place I long for.  So I have to keep looking forward.  Keep remembering the "good ol days" all while knowing that there are more days to come.  Days that I can do anything I want with.  I may not have the same young, carefree attitude I did back then, but I am still living an breathing and able to laugh and cry and live on a whim!

I guess a more important song to listen to right now would be by Jordin Sparks called "One Step at a Time":

We live and we learn to take one step at a time
There's no need to rush
It's like learning to fly or falling in love
It's gonna happen and it's supposed to happen 

and we find the reasons why
One step at a time

So although I will try to remember to take it one step at a time... I could really could use a wish right now....

Forever Young

I heard this song this morning and i love it, it's perfect for my life since it's almost my birthday:

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young