Photo Journal: Good News and Bad

Free Drinks on my way west

Really? Already?

Enough is Enough

When you are overweight, you can't see or feel the difference when you lose a few pounds. The opposite is also true: you can't see or feel the difference when you gain a few. So--in my experience anyway-- you go back and forth, up and down a few pounds all the time. Down because you try, then back up because you can't really feel your effort so why bother? Going the distance? Too daunting a task.

So you go up and down five pounds, then ten, maybe fifteen. Over time you go up more than you go down. And suddenly you find yourself at a weight you promised yourself you would never ever see on the scale. So you pretend to yourself that you're okay where you are, because trying and failing would feel worse than learning how to love and accept your new, heavier self. If you have a healthy self-esteem and value things about yourself other than body image, you figure it out. Your pretty face, sense of style, sense of humor, intelligence, compassion, creativity, and strength are worth a lot. Your family and friends love and accept you. And you do the same.

But then one day something shifts. You decide you can go the distance because if you don't the future is bleak. That something may be one certain thing.  Or it may be a confluence of things.

Turning fifty.

Dating again.

Deciding to change careers.

Getting ready to spend a summer away in a city that's fun to walk around, where you will not be getting in a car to move yourself from every point A to point B.

Seeing an old picture of yourself and thinking, Oh my god, how happy I looked! Not necessarily How great I looked, but how happy I seemed to be. I didn't avoid the camera then.

So you say Enough! Get it together, girl!  You have way too much to offer to hide behind that wall of... what?... insecurity?...fear? Whatever it is, you decide it just doesn't suit you anymore.

No more looking back. No more beating yourself up. What's done is done. You shift your energy. You set a realistic goal, seek support from a few people close to you who will encourage you, and you start to get it done.

One pound at a time.

Spring Fling

I think we are out of the woods, no snow flakes in sight. Finally. Mid-April. We didn't even get the tease week in March this year. Again. Obviously I'm a little frustrated and afraid to say the word that starts with sp and rhymes with ring, because here in New England we know Mother Nature is a special kind of Beotch. I mean lovely, wonderful, powerful. Perpetually PMS, super awesome beotch woman in charge.

All the parking spots are back in my school's parking lot, so competing at seven a.m. with sixteen year-olds--who could take the bus--for a spot where I work is a little easier (though no less insulting). I can see around corners. I don't have salt stains on my car. My heat is off. And I'm not having hot flashes yet!

I can't help but step out into the sun and think that I need to roll down the windows and crank up the tunes. It is time to watch the tan slowly and ever so slightly develop on my hands, face, and eventually forearms as I move from long sleeves to three-quarter. My ankles and feet will remain pasty white as I move into capris and sandals until I hit the pool, but it is underway.

Thanks, Mother Nature. You made your point. But now I plan to enjoy every moment you are not being ornery.

I Love It, I Love It Not...Getting Rid of Prescription Labels

In this day and age it is important to protect your identity whenever possible. Especially since a certain medical insurance company had a colossal breach, I might be slightly paranoid about it. Unfortunately, because my shredder jammed and I have yet to give in and buy a new one, I now have a copy paper box full of garbage to be shredded. It really is garbage, isn't it? Junk mail, credit card and car insurance offers, catalogs with credit offers, prescription disclaimers that come attached to the bag. Because now we have to worry about medical identity theft (unrelated to said breach, so that people can't go in and pretend to be me when they need a mammogram--and that's another post) in addition to tax fraud and social security fraud, prescription bottles are another issue entirely.

Have you ever tried to get a label off a prescription bottle? Do you have a few a month to keep up with? Or do you just save them for pins and paper clips and fun girls' night ice cubes and Popsicle shapes or other things ala Pinterest? I [heart] Pinterest but that's not me. I have enough things to hold my things in other things, and I'm trying really hard to de-clutter so I don't save them and reuse them. "Upcycle" I think is the trendy term. I try to get rid of them.

And it's infuriating. Because what do you do when you get the label off? If you can get it off in fewer than three pieces? Tear that into tiny bits and and scatter the pieces between the kitchen garbage, bathroom track and living room in case someone goes through your trash? Or do you the stick the pieces to the garbage in your box of sh*t to shred?

Do you understand my frustration? I do not love you, oh-so-secure prescription bottle labels. You drive me mad.

Joyful

I planned on getting more housecleaning done this April vacation--de-cluttering and catching up on overdue projects. I realize though, as I get ready to go out in the glorious sunshine and enjoy my first al fresco lunch of the season, I'm okay not giving my apartment that attention. I am giving myself that attention. I am an overdue project. I have de-cluttering to do. I have come a long way this last year, but I have a way to go.

The last five years have been some of the saddest, and most stressful, of my life.
Yet on the heels of terrible loss in my family, I have celebrated happy occasions with those of us who remain: three weddings, three babies on the way. A baby boom in the next generation of my family. Three new souls to replace the lives we have lost. I hope those cousins are as close as I am to mine. Still. So much good ahead lies ahead. I am grateful and I am loved.

Despite the stress, I have also had some really happy times. I am grateful that I have always been able to laugh and to make people laugh--sometimes just because my crazy laugh is contagious. I know sometimes people are laughing at my reaction, and not the joke, but that is still fun. I have great friends and have had relaxing vacations. Laughter has never left me. It is one of life's sweetest gifts, and best medicines for the soul, and I am grateful to laugh a lot.

In a conversation with a friend the other day, I made this analogy. I feel like despite good times and laughter, I was still in a fairly dark place. I was somewhere dark but always able to peek my head out and let the sun kiss my cheeks. I took part in momentary pleasure before retreating to that comfortable, albeit dark, place. But lately I've done doing some of that personal maintenance, if you will. Just catching up on me.

I am no longer trapped by the thought of being stuck teaching until I retire; I have made a plan to change careers. I have unearthed and let go of some hurt. I have opened my heart and therefore myself up to romantic possibility, and although my first attempt was an epic fail, I'm okay. I am moving forward. I am not just laughing but experiencing joy. I really am joyful. I understand that I can feel hurt and angry (even in the same day, as I have recently) but I am spending more time in the figurative sun.

How glorious today to acknowledge that as I get ready to step out into the real deal, 70 degree sunshine. Okay, only 65 degrees. Even still. It has been a long, dark winter.

I'm ready for spring.

Two Words. Maybe More.

In interviews I have seen Oprah ask famous people--not exactly in these words, but something akin: what would you tell your younger self?  Recently my friend Deanna asked me if I could give my younger self two words of wisdom, what would they be?

I don't know if I can be interview-eloquent, nor do I feel I can limit myself to one, single two-word phrase. But I am going to try to come somewhere in between in this post.

I have always been confident in my intelligence. I was my parents' daughter, after all. I was smart and curious and a good student. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw my second grade teacher at the wake of a friend who passed tragically and unexpectedly. I had an opportunity to tell one of the most influential people in my life that she was just that, that she had a profound effect on me, as a young girl, a student, a writer, a human being. All these years later, she had changed, but I recognized her; her spirit was still so familiar to me. Just as I moved forward in the line she hugged me, and said she remembered me. "Of course I remember you! You were a genius!" she said. "How could I forget those eyes?" I told her that she was a great teacher, so kind to me when I was a student. She took the time after school to teach me capitalization and punctuation when we hadn't learned it yet because I showed her stories I was writing at home. She could have shut me down, told me "wait till next year," but she didn't. She encouraged me all those years ago. And I embraced her, as I did the opportunity to thank her. That moment was a gift. Second grade with Miss D was a gift.

I have also always, always felt unconditional love from my immediate and extended family. Sundays spent with them at my grandparents' connected me to cousins who as a result are more like siblings. It made me feel strong. And loved.

Along the way I have developed friendships that I have taken as seriously as family. If you are "good people" and truly my friend, then you are family to me. Perhaps because I have always been single, maybe just because I truly appreciate human connection, I don't know where I would be without that collective family.

Yet somehow, despite having all the right foundations, being strong and feeling smart, and knowing that I was unconditionally loved, this crazy, f*cked up, superficial world has made me feel at times that I was "less than," not deserving of romantic love. So I have made bad choices in relationships. I settled for less than I needed. I haven't demanded what I deserved

I'm fast approaching the sixth decade of my life and still I have not.

I'm not preparing for an interview with Oprah (half of this would be edited out anyway), but I will follow through with two words. Not a single two, but pairs of words I stand by, many of which I wish had been told, but appreciate that I needed to learn on my own.

Try hard. No fear. No regrets. Abandon doubts. Health first. Worry less. Drink less. Don't smoke. Ever ever. Have fun. Be yourself. Forgive yourself. Love yourself. Happiness follows. Accept love. Feel joy. Reject mediocrity. Be yourself. Honor yourself. You rock.

Be fierce.

You are.

The Tag

There is a moment in my life I can recall more clearly than most others. Moreover, I remember how I felt, though I couldn’t really explain it well. It was an overwhelming feeling—not a premonition really, but one of knowing. It remains difficult to qualify.

I was living in Boston, and on the T, on the green C line train between Coolidge Corner and Washington Square. I was riding alone. It was a Saturday. In winter. I was wearing a black and white hound’s tooth swing coat with a black Peter Pan collar (I loved that coat). (I even remember my pants and shoes, though I don’t miss them as much as I do the coat.) I was having a great day. As we were pulling away from the Summit Avenue stop, all of the sudden I had a really strong feeling that I was supposed to be there at that very moment. Just then I happened to look over at an elderly couple seated across from me, and saw the older gentleman reach behind his wife to tuck in the tag of her jacket. That’s what old married couples do, I thought. They keep each other company and tuck in each other’s tags. I hope to have that one day. I felt like I was witnessing something very lovely and sweet and yet so intimate that I had to look away. When I did, I still had that knowing feeling.

When I reminisce about Boston I often think of that moment, that Saturday on the T when I felt I was living in the right place at the right time, I had the life I should. The couple was always a detail to me, like the hound’s tooth coat, the C line, the winter day. Until the other night.

I was out with a friend I’ve known casually for a few years. We met when I was l with someone else so we have kept it friendly, although there has always been chemistry between us. Lately I've been allowing myself to feel the stronger spark. We were talking and laughing—and flirting I suppose—when he reached over and pulled a dangling blonde hair off the shoulder of my sweater.

“Hold on. There you go," he said, as he dropped it to the ground.

“Oh, thank you,” I replied.

When I looked up, I saw someone look away.

Pass the... Journal?

I go in and out of writing phases. Years and years ago (decades in fact--yikes!) my friend Tamara and I, both prolific journal keepers who became close during graduate school but ended up on separate coasts afterward, would share and exchange journals. At first we kept one journal that one of us would write in and hold on to for a couple of weeks or months, and then we would set a date and make the pass. I can't remember whose brilliant idea it was, but it was brilliant, wasn't it? A bound collection of letters, long after the age of pen pals--and lower phone bills as a bonus? (As I mentioned, it was decades ago, before cell phones and long distance calls plans.) Eventually we decided to have two so that we could each be in possession of one; we'd write for a while and then we'd pick a date to mail and switch. Within our journal-writing years there were also times we decided we needed to live a little more, to get out of our heads and not write so much about it. Tam would put down her blue Waterman, I my black Mont Blanc, and we'd step away from our journals.

I mention this because lately I've been trying to figure out why I haven't been writing.

At all.

It's not that I don't enjoy writing anymore. When I am on the busy end of a sentence--be it a fictional one I am crafting, or intended to be a funny one in an email to a colleague or friend, or one of Amy's that she asked me to take a second look at--I am happy. I am in my element. And it's not that I'm so busy living I haven't spent any time unwinding and relaxing (Zynga is the Devil). But I am definitely distracted. And in transition. I'm getting ready to change the "about me" information at the bottom of my blog from "forty-something" to "fifty." I'm also getting ready to change careers, which I feel I need to be somewhat secretive about until I do. Sad, but true, I don't trust my administration. I don't trust that people who should be supportive of me and my personal growth would f**k me over instead, and force an earlier exit. And I know for sure I don't want this to be a place where all I do is complain about my (mostly) sh*tty job.

So while I'm in transition, I may only randomly and occasionally post. Meanwhile I just may have to get those old journals out of storage and take them with me out to the Pacific Northwest on my summer adventure so Tam and I can hang out on her deck and read them. Maybe Jen will join us.

I wonder how much we've changed.

Photo Journal: Superbowl Leftovers

Despite braving the crowds on Sunday morning to have respectable Superbowl snacks on hand (for a party of one), I  could not keep myself away from the game long enough to make myself nachos last night. But boy, did I have a nice snow day lunch/dinner today. Go, Patriots!

Photo Journal: Under Restoration

Sunset at Torrey Pines Beach 

The last month or so is a blur, every day a struggle to get to the next day. The goal?  A long-anticipated vacation in San Diego. In case there is any doubt, I am enjoying every moment. 

I Love It, I Love it Not...Right on Red

I am not a fan of the law that allows right on red. I have enough stress in my life. (See posts about teaching.)  I don't need the pressure of taking a right on red when I don't really have a good view to my left (especially on one particular turn I often make, where I am frankly shocked a right on red is even allowed), and the asshole impatient driver behind me is tooting his horn because I remain stopped  where I can legally turn right. Often times there is a steady flow of traffic on the green light passing by, but does the person behind me see that? Or even care? No!!!!! S/he is just thinking what is this person waiting for? Really, we are talking seconds, not minutes. Regardless. Whether you are simply impatient or running late, I don't care. It's not my emergency. And I'm not willing to risk my life because you're in a hurry.

I wish there was a way communicate "Shut up! I'll go when I can! Sorry to hold up your life for fifteen seconds. Jerk!," without saying a word.

Oh, yeah. There is. One of my favorite gestures. And that deserves a [heart] note.

Show Time

When I started this blog, I was a single, forty-something woman navigating midlife as a teacher. Just a few times over the years that I have been blogging I tweaked my bio a tiny bit--just in case someone wanted to know who was writing and scrolled down to read About Me. Mainly I changed the number of years I have been teaching. The rest has stayed the same.

Now, as I live out this last year of my forties, I realize that in order to navigate a happy midlife I need to change courses. I would love to live to a ripe old age, enjoying a long, healthy retirement, but have serious doubts about the feasibility of such a happily-ever-after if I continue in my career as a teacher. The stress is unhealthy. I'm sure if it doesn't kill me, it will make me sick. I'm already unhappy. 

A few years ago, the scale still tipped to the satisfied and happy side; what went on in my classroom still trumped all the other stuff that my colleagues and I all grumbled about but managed. Oh, and there was that. I had my colleagues, who are my friends and who support one another like family, in what has become a shameful culture of Us vs.Them. I still have them. But it's not enough to tip the scale anymore. I am still satisfied most days. I try hard, and I think I'm an effective teacher, who cares about her students. But I am unhappy. 

And I want to be happy.

I deserve to happy.

I have never placed the burden of my happiness in the hands of someone else, not even half of it. (I still hope that I will find someone--and imagine if he were already in place in my life I'd be begging to figure out how I could quit and we could still pay our bills--but enough of that.) If I want to be happy, it's all on me. 

So I guess it's show time. 

Painful Payback

My friend Fran worries about me living alone. "What would happen if you got hurt?" she wondered. When I told her I would call 911, she persisted "but what if you couldn't?" From there another friend joked about wearing a Life Alert, and we all laughed.  I appreciate her concern. And I have wondered myself, but prefer not to dwell on the fact that I live alone and accidents happen--like the one we were laughing about the other day, which started the whole conversation.

I am lucky to have gotten this far in my life with only two sets of stitches, one in the emergency room (eyebrow), one at my doctor's office (chin), both when I was kid. I've had no broken bones or sprains or emergency surgeries. Other than the occasional oven burn on my arm, curling iron burn on my neck, or knife cut on a finger, I'm pretty much accident free and unscathed. (Knock on wood.)

Until a couple of weeks ago.

When I fell flat on my ass. 

Just like that!  [cue finger snap]

I got up from the couch and tripped--either on my pant leg or my purse straps (my purse was on the floor). I'm not sure exactly how and will never be, but I do know that having extra padding didn't protect me. 

Fast forward twenty four hours: ouch. Another twenty four? OUCH. For two weeks now, every time I get out of a seat, or climb stairs, or extend my leg at the hip, I am acutely aware of the muscles buried in my butt that contract to perform said motions. I've done some research and apparently coccydynia, in medical terms, or a pain in the ass--literally and in the vernacular--can take 4 to 8 weeks to heal. Super! And by that I mean not at all. 

I'm not sure how many more times I can (barely) surpress a wince when I get up from a seated position in class, but I have a pretty realistic sense of myself so every time I do I have the good sense to say a silent "I'm sorry" to all the people I have given a figurative pain in the ass in the course of my injury free life. 

Karma is a b*tch. And she takes no pity on girls with big bottoms. 

Alphabet Overload

I used to enjoy teaching. While it has never been easy, it was once more manageable. When not teaching class, I could plan and correct and give extra help to students, and still had time to stop by the teachers' lounge for a few moments of camaraderie, maybe a round of laughs with veteran teachers who shared their own embarassing classroom moments after I told mine, or a pep talk in which they assured all of us newbies that we would succeed. It has never been easy, but it was definitely more fun.

Flash forward ten years. Teachers in the lounge are there only because they are in line for the copier, quietly huffing and puffing, wondering whether they should come back later, because those few minutes of waiting could be better spent on SLOs...

Or IAGDs.
Or SATPs.
Ooh, that reminds me, I need to look over those IEPs. When is that PPT?
Shoot! Where did I put my DoK chart? (Probably in the same drawer with my UbD notebook and DDDM materials.) I have to bring it to my PLG.
Ugh. I can't believe we are still stuck on those CAPT scores and our SPI.
Wouldn't our time be better spent looking at the new NGSS or the CCSs? Since we never really got a minute training on those. Or on DI for that matter. Or how about a little time to create CFAs? Or activities for the SWRs? Would those be considered appropriate use of PLG time?
Guess I'll find out soon enough what went down at the last CA meeting. Will we be checking something off the NEASC list or working on some new pet project? I just hope our STEM coordinator isn't there. With any luck she'll be at some conference.
Although eventually she'll come back and put something else on the to-do list, something else the CT SDE has decided we should do with our free time.
Ha! Free time. Not when we're being micromanaged the way we are.
And good luck to us thinking things might change. Four more years with the governor who thinks all we have to do is show up. And the CEA endorsed him again. Those CCTs aren't going anywhere.

Are you LOL yet? WTF?
YCMTSU (You can't make this sh*t up.)

I used to enjoy teaching. It was challenging, but manageable. Rewarding. And fun. Now it's just maddening. And nearly impossible.

Taking One for the Team

I am acutely aware that in my middle age the time between hot flashes gets shorter while the season between air conditioning and heat gets shorter too. A few years ago I ran air conditioning June through September. Then May through September. Then May through the first half of October. This year I cursed myself for not turning the air conditioning back on during the third week of October when it was seventy and humid again. I suffered through it, discovering that my sassy new hairstyle definitely is not one that handles humidity well, but now find myself digging my heels in as the weather gets colder with no looking back.

So I refuse to close all my windows all the way, partly because last weekend I sweat by a mood fire in Vermont, and partly because my friend Jen who lives in Glendale, California is happy for a day in the seventies. (Just checked my weather app and see it is sixty-one there today. Bet she'd do a happy dance--if it didn't send her into a hot flash!)

Last night I kept my windows open even though It was decidedly chilly since I needed to wear a jean jacket over my sweatshirt while I watched TV before bed. This morning when I woke up my thermostat said it was fifty eight degrees in my house. But I kept my windows cracked while I drank my morning coffee, bringing myself back from the brink of hypothermia, and left them open when I headed out to run errands. 

Standing my ground, Tamara joked. Yep. Staring menopause in the face. Bring it, b*tch. I got my windows open. You've got nothing on me...for a few days anyway.

New Directions

It is always a good sign when I'm back in the kitchen being creative. When I'm back in the kitchen and exercising in some way, it's especially auspicious. (For the record, I love my new gym, I love having discovered/tapped into pool exercise this summer. Not only do I not dread it, but I look forward to it. And it makes me feel great!) Good choices lead to other good choices; positive begets positive.

I derailed (that's being kind to myself), but I'm getting back on track, and this time I believe I am headed somewhere new and different, a place I hope will be so fabulous and gratifying and happy I will never want to leave.

Photo Journal: Lake Life

Back to Life

Last school year left me completely sapped. I saw a friend forced into retirement, while other colleagues feared for their jobs and most of us generally walked around shell-shocked. Stress was palpable. I lost someone close to me in early spring and didn't have a chance to grieve because I, too, feared for my job. While I tried to keep one step ahead, I realized that I don't want that kind of job anymore. A decent retirement plan could never be adequate incentive to stay for the long term in such a toxic environment.

A happy, hopeful Plan B took form during April vacation, and it buoyed my spirits through the last several weeks of school. I spent evenings researching, jotting ideas, sharing them with friends. My exit strategy took form and occupied time after school and weekends that heretofore were filled mostly with more stress--rehashing another crazy day, dreading the next. While I was scheming, my friend, Erica (also an unhappy teacher at that time, now a satisfied Realtor), was putting her Plan B into action and my friend Tamara was in the final weeks of reinventing herself as an event planner. I was inspired and encouraged.

Still, I spent the first four weeks of summer vacation trying to feel normal again, to regain some physical and mental energy. I slept until I felt rested and tried not to make many plans because I wasn't sure I'd have the energy to put on a happy face and follow through. I wondered if Post Traumatic Stress Disorder felt like that.

Eventually, I soaked in enough sunshine by my pool to start feeling better. And then, while out at the pool, I decided that exercise would help me to feel better too. I got in the water and started exercising. A few weeks later I felt remarkably better. I feel like I am finally coming out of a deep, dark tunnel, I told a friend a couple of weeks ago--just as I started back at school.

Terrible timing.

So far I have been able to walk away at the end of the day and leave it behind me, enjoying late afternoon hours in the sun and pool for the last few days it was open. This week I plan to join a gym with a pool and will think about modifying my exit strategy timeline.

Why put off for three years what I might be able to accomplish in one?

Simple Summer Pleasures

I am probably the only person over forty who does not have a Bucket List, although I'm not exactly sure why. I have not lived with wild abandon, so it's certainly not because there is nothing left for the list. Maybe because I don't have a burning desire to do things like bungee jump or skydive, I haven't taken the time to start a bucket list that in the end would likely be a list of places to which I'd like to travel.

I did start a different kind of list, however, when I was sitting at the pool the other day. Just the day before I had gone on an antiquing adventure in Woodbury with a friend (which was a first for both of us, and a lot of fun), but other than that I thought about how I hadn't done much new or different. My vacation was half over and I hadn't done very much at all. I have a lot coming up during the second half, but even as I sat by the pool--sunning, reading, relaxing--I felt disappointed. I wondered what could I do to feel better about how I spent my summer vacation, especially with limited remaining  time and budget.

So I started thinking...

When is the last time you went to a bakery or coffee shop and sat and enjoyed a cup of coffee and a pastry? Doing so in vacation places--Chicago, Newport-- doesn't count. Neither does Starbucks. Somewhere close to home...Similarly, when is the last time you went to an ice cream stand? Have you ever gone to hot dog stand? What about packing a picnic lunch and finding a place to sit and have a quiet lunch?

Hmmmm. None of the things are particularly time consuming or expensive. I just never think to do them. And I should. I need to step outside the box, change my routine a little here and there, and enjoy some of the simple pleasures of summer. While I still have time.