The Quickening . . .

Hello all!

It's Friday night. It's my mom's birthday and, yeah, I'm sitting at my parents' computer adding a post to my blog. What a crazy week it has been! I had to work everyday. There were endless inservices, meetings, and acquaintances to make. That's not to mention a classroom to clean out and instruction to plan. (The previous teacher in my room left all his worthless, worldly possessions there covered with dust-- including a Worldbook Encyclopedia set from 1985. It's almost as if he was saying to me, "Here. You throw this away.") I'm finally at a point where I just have a few changes to make to my room, finalize next week's plans, and then get ready to greet my students at the door!

School starts on Monday and, since I have no life, I am going to spend the whole weekend at school getting ready. Luckily, I intend to be accompanied by my parents' camera so hopefully I will finally have some pictures for this blog!

My mommy had a lovely birthday. We went and saw the movie, Little Miss Sunshine. It's a crazy film, with an ADD-esque array of main characters that include a very dirty, cocaine-addicted grandfather, his self-obsessed son, a teenager who has taken a vow of silence until the day when he becomes a jet pilot, a gay, suicidal Proust scholar, and a seven-year-old girl with a belly who wants to win one of those little girl beauty pageants. The film is hilarious and its point is deep and profoundly made. The message in the movie is this: at the end of the day, each of us should be loved and appreciated for who we are no matter how gross, silly, quirky, weird, or off-color that may be. As a self-professed non-pageant winner, I really have to appreciate this message. It especially rings true now that in three days I will have a classroom full of a bunch of 9-12 th graders who need to be loved and appreciated for who they are, no matter how strange I perceive them to be. The same goes for the teachers at my school and, believe me, there are some crazy, quirky, and very off-color teachers at our school.

The other day, I was riding in the car and I saw a guy about my age walking on the sidewalk. With him was a woman with a baby in a bellypack. As I drove by them, I found myself wondering something that has popped up in my mind over and over. How does that happen? How do people fall in love and get married? Over and over and over I have met people I found attractive, only to get to know them and discover that my first impression was totally wrong. They're not bad people, but what I always discover is that -- for some reason or another -- they are not for me and I, in turn, am not for them. Usually our beliefs differ in some profound and undeniably important way, what they want out of life is mutually exclusive with what I hope for in life, or any number of other unreconcilable differences pop up. (The last one never wanted kids and believed in aliens like, to a point I couldn't even respect.) In any case, its like, through all of them, the message is ever-present and undeniably clear, "Not this one", "Nope. Wrong again," and, "Are you kidding me? I thought you got the picture last time. Listen again: It's not going to happen." I'm sure people could lecture me about letting go and letting God, about forgetting about it, etc. But, I've thought hard about that and this is what I've decided: How can you just forget about your vocation? Could you just forget about your dream, your family, or any other number of things that are really important to you and to your future? I will not stop thinking about the direction I hope my life will go, about the things I've wished and dreamed for since I was a pre-teen. I have a very hard time accepting the possibility that now could be forever, or that I may never receive any answers from above in this area. And no, I will not forget about it, or stop hoping, or stop thinking about where I hope my life is going to go. Why? Because I've tried and that's just not reality. People who say it is are either married or otherwise "settled" people who like to lecture single people about the virtues of unmarried chastity and selflessness. (This makes me retch every time. If you were married at 21 and had 3 kids in your first six years of marriage, you have no more business lecturing me about how I ought to live a single life than I do lecturing you about how you should handle your children or how you should resolve issues with your spouse.) That would be like me trying to lecture a brain surgeon on how to do neurosurgery. If you were single and never managed to "not think about it" and just accept it on your own with no answers in sight, then I don't want to hear about it from you. If you were once single and did manage to do this, then please englighten me because I have no idea how to stop hoping and wishing. And hoping and wishing only to be disappointed over and over is a real pain in the patootie and, quite frankly, I'm sick of it.

But I have thought hard about what life would be like if it would happen that I wouldn't ever get married. Could I accept that? Could I ever be happy? I have decided that I could live without sex: conversations with married girlfriends as well as limited personal experiences have taught me that. But I'm not sure I could be happy and feel satisfied without the rest of it. What if I never got the opportunity to be pregnant? To be a mother? To hold and nurse a baby? This is also a possibility about which God has provided no answers thus far. I suppose I could live if this didn't happen, but I would feel cheated. Man, would I ever. And the other questions: Could I grow old alone? Could I ever be satisfied growing older alone while I watched family and friends have children, spend time with their families, and celebrate major family milestones, all the while never being anything besides a casual observer or a friendly outsider? That would be tough too, and God and I would have to do a few rounds about that one. But I know it would end as it always does, like I'm screaming at a wall -- who won't budge or move or provide any kind of comfort besides a friendly, distant, disinterested smile and inexcusable silence. I know that it may not actually be like that, but that's how it feels.

And the big realization that has been just killing me lately is how little control I have over any of this. I had a professor once who said he could have married any number of the women he dated and been perfectly happy. The only thought that went through my mind is What? What planet do you come from? That is so far from my own experience, which has shown me over and over how many people I couldn't have married. (Really. This isn't just that I'm hard to please, I swear. Both of us knew we were not for each other in just about all these situations. You get a sense for this when you listen to your gut.) And the more the scenario repeats itself, the sicker I am of going through it and, yeah, I'm about ready to throw in the towel. Not in a sort of, "Yeah. I like single. Let's do this forever" kind of way. It's more like a "Whatever! Just as long as I don't get disappointed and heart broken anymore and I don't have to play any more of these stupid games!" kind of way. But I still can't imagine being single forever. That's not really something I can even fathom. So I keep hoping and I keep getting disappointed and through it all there is is this unbearable, answerless silence from above and -- at the best of times -- a "trust Me" thing that I have thus far not accepted. Trust You for what? No offense, but God's record on this point has stunk thus far. And that's where it lies, and it sort of stays like that, and it's total crap. I hope I grow out of it. That's all I have to say about that.

On a lighter note, I am finally getting my finances really under control. I made a budget last month. I can't save as much each month as I was hoping, but at least I'll be living under a realistic money plan. I'm doing the envelope system where I take out a certain amount of money out for certain purposes. I've arranged so everything I spend on impulse buys comes out in cash at the beginning. It'll work out.

And the pets are all on meds, and all fine. (Besides Andromeda, who is dead.) If I get another mouse, I will name her Persephone.

I am so tired I am going to go to bed. Enough ranting. I'll write more tomorrow. It's better to talk when you're conscious.