The Higher You Climb

Yesterday, I would have told you I was blessed. Today, it occurs to me that I am cursed.

On Second Thought

Regret is like a sneaker wave. I am never looking for it, it comes when I least expect it and it drowns me, leaving me sad and sorry for much longer than I would like. I spend a lot of my time thinking about regret. I remember a girl I went to high school once saying “I don’t want to live my life with regret.” She was beautiful, sweet, and the prom queen. So of course I thought, "Yes, me too. I also don’t want regret." Except, I don’t know how to live without it. I don’t know how to avoid it. And I seem to welcome it into my life over and over again.

“If only…” becomes my mantra. My dreams are of whole other lives. I wish upon stars. I slave over my horoscope. I do all of this with the hope that somehow, some person or being or spirit will intervene and rescue me from this life I continue to regret.

I regret decisions instantly and continue to steep in regret until it is so strong, it is nearly unbearable.  I regret purchases. I regret romances. I regret hairstyles. I regret job choices. I regret my geography. I regret friendships--those I made and friendships I did not make. I regret being too honest. I regret lies. I regret indulging. I regret limiting. I regret hurt. I regret joy.

Tonight, I regret. I wonder why I didn’t think about this before. I wonder why I thought this would be different than the other times. I worry that I will never make anything of myself. I am concerned that my poor decision making in the past will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I wonder if I will regret posting this…

Brave New Girl

I had never done this before. I was positive that I was making a fool of myself. Each time I glanced up from my notebook, I caught his eye. The first few times, I thought it a coincidence. After the fourth, I realized he was looking at me. Now, my eyes couldn’t help but wander to his. I took him in. He looked nice, clean, sane. His eyes were dark, almost a chocolate, or at least I thought so from my seat across the room.

I decided to smile. I would smile the next time I looked up at him. Yes. I would try not to blush. I would smile and see if he would come say hello, maybe buy me another cup of coffee. Or at least smile back.

I took a deep breath and stared intently at my notebook. I prepared myself for the newer, more confident me. I would do it. In the next ten seconds. Ten, nine, eight, seven…two, one. I raised my eyes. I tossed my hair as I attempted to appear confident and alluring. I stared boldly in his direction with a flirty smirk.

His seat was empty. He was gone.

Pants on Fire

Today I lied to the store clerk. “I grew up on the coast,” I said. “We ate fish all the time.”

In truth, I grew up thousands of miles from either coast. The first time I had shrimp, I was in sixth grade and was having dinner at the neighbors. I thought it chewy and somewhat alien.

Why lie, then? Why deceive someone I will likely never see again and have absolutely no reason to impress?

I have no answers. It is just part of my fabric, I guess. I am a liar. Lies: They roll off my tongue. They come naturally and easily. They set me apart from my miserable, average self.

Perhaps the person I am trying to impress is me. But, perhaps that too is just a lie.

Dawning of a new year

Here I go: another school year begins tomorrow and with it some significant changes. I am happy for the change. I am glad to do work that I feel has more worth. I am ready to feel more fulfilled. But, there are some things I forgot about being a classroom teacher. I forgot how sometimes we get stepped on. I forgot how it is a culture of complaint. I forgot that there is a lack of resources to do our job well. I forgot the feeling that grows inside of me: resentment, confusion, fatigue. I am a different person going into this job than I was many years ago starting my teaching career. I am glad for that. I am glad for the roots I have planted that will allow me to weather more storms and be a better person at the end of it.

I fear that I will get caught up in the negativity. I fear that I will be shunned. I fear that I will be disliked. I am anxious.

I am thrilled about the opportunity I have to try new things. My mind runs constantly with ideas, scenarios and…fear. It sits like a stone under my ribs. It makes it harder to breath. It makes me want to pace around, I am unable to sit still. It becomes a flush on my cheeks, a bad taste in my mouth. It clouds my thinking. It squeezes my heart. I make my eyes feel raw.
When I left last year, I knew something in a way I had never known it before and that was that I need to be free. I need to act and dream and create and do so as my will compels me. Teaching, while rewarding and fulfilling, does not provide freedom. It squashes it under a big heavy boot. Schools have potential for freedom and creativity and transformation, but they continue to squander resources, mismanage people and children and waste their potential on rigor.

Synonyms for rigor: strictness, severity, stringency, toughness, harshness, inflexibility, scrupulousness. Synonyms for creative: inventive, imaginative, innovative, experimental, original, artistic, expressive, inspired, visionary, enterprising, resourceful.

Do we want rigorous schools? Or creative ones? Do we want our students to feel they were held to rigorous standards or creative ones? Do I want to be part of something rigorous or creative? Is it really a choice? Ah well...another year begins.

Slow Good Night

I love the feel of an evening August breeze as it slides past the curtains. Crickets keep time in the backyard. The creek sings a lullaby. The sun sets rose pink over the plains. Voices of children call out as they cling to the last few days of vacation. The sky is one hundred shades of blue and gray. The last of the sunlight lingers on the clouds, saying a slow good night.

The day was warm, but the night breeze is cool. It dances on my neck, the back of my leg. The deep night will turn cold. I will sleep well under the cover of blankets. The sun will rise a bit later in the morning. The day will dawn with reminders of all that must still be done. Brisk fall mornings are when I make up for the lost time of lazy afternoons of summer.

Everything will be crisper in the fall. The air. People’s voices. The sounds of shoes on the sidewalk. All of them will strike with a bit more urgency. People will scurry about preparing for the coming winter. But for now, I sit in the path of the soft wind. I will make mine a slow good night.

Slippery Fish

The world waits. It needs me to do my part. But my head aches and my heart pounds with worry. I feel my breath race out from me. Not enough returns. I want so much. I feel like it is out of reach. I worry that I made mistakes. Too many to count. Why do I panic? Why do I feel as though time is a slippery fish? I cannot grab hold. How long have I barely kept control? So long. Too long. I want peace. I want freedom. I want the life I dream about.

How do I get it? I write. I think this is the answer. I write because writing is a way to make money. It will help me free myself and my family from the hole we have dug. Why else? I write because I want people to look at me the way I imagine they will when I tell them I am a writer—scratch that, an author. I write because I can write well. I have words in my soul. So many words. They pour out of me, even when there is no one to hear them. I have stories. Heartache. Hurt. I can tell stories to which other people can cling. I can tell stories that help other people to make sense of their senseless lives. I will tell the stories that have helped me to know who I am.

But, it is harder than I thought. The world waits. It is not patient. It cannot be ignored. There is little time. There is even less peace. I panic because time swims away. It evades my grasp. When I snatch it back, little pieces at a time, I panic more. I worry that my words are lame. I worry that my stories are lifeless.

Can I do this? Do you believe in me? I ask this one-hundred times a day. Yes. The answer is always yes. It would never be no. But, how? I don’t ask that. No one knows that answer. I ache with longing. Somewhere below my stomach (my gut?) a slow burn continues to stoke itself. It never goes out. It just heats my belly. It causes me to remember. I cannot forget. I cannot give up. I am worried.

I pray for answers. I pray for strength. I pray for peace. I will continue to pray for those things.