How do you fix that?

I have been having a really bad go of it lately. I literally had an anxiety attack in my sleep last night. I don't know what to do now. Where to go from here. How to make things make sense again.

I had too much to think again.

Gorky is like this reminder that I'm not who I thought I'd be. And isn't that sad? He started it all. The crying that is. This despondency has been building for awhile. I didn't do my homework this weekend. Just flat out didn't do it. Slept all day Saturday, worked for a bit, busy work, that evening. And today was just a loss. A complete and utter loss.

I can't believe how bad I can get sometimes. An anxiety attack in my sleep!! Seriously?? Then I had another one this afternoon. Curled up on the floor for a bit until it passed.

I wish life weren't so busy. That I had time for a breather that doesn't demand so many consequences. I'm not suicidal right now but the idea of saying that I am just so I can be committed sounds nice. Not that I would do that. Far too expensive. There are better ways to take a vacation. I suppose. I can't think of any at the moment, but I'm sure there are.

I'm falling apart and somehow, this time, it is not gradual. I feel like something has ripped open inside me, leaving me less than whole. And how do you fix that?

I need a life doctor.

One I'd listen to.

I see my therapist in two weeks and I'm wondering if maybe I should bump that up a notch and see if she has anything for next week. Silly though, what difference will one week make?

I want a way to feel like me again. Can you figure out how to make that happen?

I can't.

Wasting Time

So I'm at school in the computer lab because we got out of orientation for work two hours early, and I now have two hours to kill. I could have gone back home for dinner, but then I just would have had to backtrack to get back to Indy. So here I am.

I brought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with me to read and I have my class notebook, which isn't my journal but would do. So it's not like I have nothing to do.

I'm super tired today. Didn't sleep well last night and had to get up at 5:30 this morning to go to orientation for my new job, which officially starts tomorrow at 9 am. I have to do a bunch of training modules online but I don't have to get my CDA because I have enough credits from my Masters to suffice. So that's good news. And I get paid for my traning modules, 1 hour.

There was a lot to take in today. Six hours of listening to everything and trying to remember it. I need to read the employee handbook yet too. Tomorrow should be interesting. I hope and pray that Miss Combs and I get along. I have a feeling we're going to have different ideas on how to teach, but I hope this doesn't become a problem.

I am so tired!!

I should probably be looking over stuff from class and getting organized. I still have an hour to kill. Sigh. I just want to sleep. I realllllly don't want to drive home in the snow tonight. Four hours of class is just long enough for the roads to get slick. Visibility was horrible on my way here, so I'm sure it'll be worse in the dark. I just don't like driving in the dark. Especially on 465.

The people in here are annoying me!! I'm going to a conference room to read I guess.

Until next time...

Identity Characters

From Eric Maisel's Deep Writing...

Human beings are psychological creatures. This may seem self-evident, yet the writer who does not write, or who writes but does not write deeply, rarely turns to herself to ask, "What's my nature, and what in my nature is the problem?"

I am definitively a psychological creature.

I write, sometimes deeply (Maisel defines deep writing as writing that is passionate and well written), and sometimes not.

And yet, I have had to turn to myself and ask Who am I? That is a very close question to What's my nature?

An activity I have engaged in that my therapist (yes, I have a therapist) suggested to me is called Cast of Characters. What you do is you take all of your identities, all those hats you wear, and assign them roles based on how prominent the identity is.

My main character is the Critic. I am very self-critical. I'm never satisfied.

I think this identity can also answer the question What is my nature? It is in my nature to criticize everything I do, think, or say. This critique extends to my writing. Not that I am self-critical of my writing, because, in all honesty, I'm not. But my self-criticism comes with a certain sense of self-knowing that is beneficial when writing.

I know myself and I strive to get to know myself when I write. Like therapy, like meditation, like writing, self-knowledge is inherent.

Teaching

I was only awake for about five hours yesterday. Yes, that's right. I slept all day. Beautiful. Then I had a 5:30 AM wake up call this morning. Sigh. Did NOT want to get out of bed! But it's worth it to go see Samuel and Lizzy! Sam is so cute! He's sleeping now.

Sometimes, like when his little fingers grasp mine when I'm feeding him his bottle, or when he smiles, I almost feel like I might want kids of my own. But it's only almost. Not that that is a concern right now, as I'm single and not seeing anyone. And definitely not financially secure enough to adopt, if I should want to.

Lizzy just woke up. There goes my peace and quiet ;) Kidding. She's watching Mickey Mouse. She didn't even start crying when she realized that her parents weren't here! I'm shocked. She threw herself on the floor, but she didn't cry.

I've had far too much coffee and not enough food.

I'm looking forward to starting my job/orientation for my job on Monday. I have most of my Instructional Unit done for my class, so hopefully I won't get overwhelmed by working full time and going to school full time too. It's all about time management! And I'm good at being organized.

I'm still anxious about student teaching, and it's more than a year in the future yet. I'm not even sure why I'm anxious. Hmm, let me think. I can't work so I have to have money saved up for that time period. And I have no money right now, let alone money saved up. So I only have a year to save up money. I need to sit down and figure out how much I need to save up to survive for five months or so. I can do this!

What else? Hmm, maybe I'm anxious about how I'll do, teaching in general, how I'll interact with the mentoring teacher and the students...I want them to like me. I want me to be able to teach them, to reach them. So yeah. I'm a little anxious.

But looking forward to it at the same time. It's a new phase of my life. Sometimes I doubt if teaching is really what I want, but I know I like working with kids, and I like being able to teach them because they soak up so much so quickly. They're fascinating.

Maybe I'll finish school and be an overeducated pre-school teacher, maybe I'll teach Kindergarten or First grade, or maybe I'll go on to get my PhD in Educational Psychology. Maybe none of the above. Maybe I'll discover something new. Life is, after all, a process of discovery.

Sadness Believes in Me

I believe in sadness, in a way that you can only believe when you know that sadness also believes in you. I have grown old with sadness. My fault, but yours too.

I started writing tonight about memories, things I have been. In some life not relate-able to my current one. Memories that have a scent, a texture, a song to be heard if only you listen. My song has changed over the years.

It's haunting, these memories.

And then there's you. And this hole in me that I never knew was there until I realized that you had filled it up. Which, ironically, is like losing your virginity. You don't know what you've lost until you can't get it back ever again. But I had found you, in this hole in my heart, and when you left, you took it with you. Good thing I don't need it anyway.

But, sometimes, in the dark, or near dark...sometimes when I'm writing...just sometimes...I miss it.

And then I'm reduced to that little lost girl with wild flowers in her hair and coldness in her empty bed. It's a role I've played for years.

How odd that a little lost girl can also be a firefly princess. But it makes a sad kind of sense. My firefly side drew you in, but the little lost girl couldn't keep you. Which is me?

Yes. Sadness believes in me.

Blessed

I have been blessed!

I start my new job on Monday and I'm super excited about it. It will be so good to be back in a work environment and around little ones again after so long of being unemployed. It feels kind of like the first day of high school in a way though. "Will they like me? Will I do well? Who will I be around all day?" All those stressful, anxiety provoking thoughts. But mostly I'm excited.

God has renewed my spirit for teaching in a time when I was getting bogged down in the details of homework and doubt over my future. I am looking forward to being a teacher in a way that gives me hope. The doubts are still there, but so are the options and opportunities for growth.

It helps of course that my life seems to be falling into place, in a neat little line I can travel without fear because I can see what's coming. I passed the Praxis, I'm driving more and more even though I still don't like it, I'm learning (which is always good for me), and I still have the free time available to do what I want to do despite being in classes again.

I have a future, a hope, a destiny. And even when my life isn't a neat little line, I will trust that even though I can't see where I'm going, God can. And I will not be led astray!

May it be so!

English Language Learners and Me

So I had my first class last night. It's Structured English Immersion. I am learning primarily about the history of English Language Learning so far. We have to do an instructional unit--a three day lesson plan--teaching to both the content standards and the language standards. It's hard to try to mix language learning into content!! And I decided to make it easy on myself and do a Language Arts, Reading lesson with Kindergarten students and it was still difficult to think of how to make it fit together!!

So my Unit is going to be a lesson on word recognition and rhyming. The first lesson I will read the first few pages of Horton Hears A Who and then we'll talk about the letters, words, sentences connections and then about how some words sound the same. We'll progress to creating our own rhymes. It should be fun!!

Kindergarteners are still learning English as it is, so it should be easier to teach English to Language Learners because you're already kind of teaching it. I didn't just pick Kindergarten to make the assignment easier though. I want to teach either Pre-K, Kindergarten, or First Grade when I graduate.

Eventually I may get my PhD, but that's a ways away and I haven't decided if I want to go into Educational Psychology yet or not. Don't get me started on Educational Psychology...I could talk about it for awhile.

Sometimes I question my decision to go back to school, but there are times, like now, when I feel like I've made the right decision.

I majored in English Literature for my undergraduate degree and while I loved it and wouldn't change it for the world, I haven't found much use for it. I was going into publishing, but that didn't work out. Turned out it wasn't what I wanted after all.

Then I sort of fell into working with children. They grow on you ;)

So here I am.

Right now, from where I'm sitting, the future looks bright. And coming from me, that's an amazing statement.

May it be so!!