It seems like every time I make a new mixtape I want to update this blog. Maybe I should start making more mixtapes. Maybe some of you disagree ;)
Big things are happening in life and while change is usually scary, I'm finding these things quite the opposite. I have gotten rid of my nice reliable car and I'm going to buy something cheap to get me from A to B. I have felt for a long time like I need to simplify my life but I just haven't gotten around to it until now.
I have no idea what I'm doing-- I have never bought a used car before, much less one for under $5K.. it could turn out to be a bad decision, but whatever. I'm going to give it a try. I may be buying a house soon. I'm not sure if that's the best idea for me right now, but we'll see on that too. There is something inviting about owning real estate and something entirely terrifying about it at the same time. If something goes wrong there is no landlord to call for a quick fix... you're the one responsible for fixing it. I'm not sure that I'm at the point in my life that I can afford to buy a water heater or replace central A/C... but I feel like I'm at the point in my life where I'm too old to be renting a box to live in for a ridiculous amount of money every month.
Anyway, all of that is boring.
I'm graduating in three months and 9 days. Graduating from college. Sadly, this won't mean a pay raise.. it wont' mean a different career.. it will just mean a piece of paper that I have paid roughly $25K for. Someday I'm sure it will come in handy but for right now it's a piece of paper and a sense of accomplishment for 9ish years of work to complete something substantial. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up though. There are days when I am 100% sure that I want to teach HS English. Days when I read a good book, talk about literature with someone, explain Gatsby to my baby sister, I'm sure I want to teach in these moments... but there are days when I'm doing homework and realize I have no idea about writers of specific time periods, couldn't teach a grammar lesson without having kids laugh at me, and couldn't really care less about MLA style formatting when I think I'd be doing a disservice to students. I know that I want to write .. but I still have no idea what I want to write because I have yet to have time to write anything that hasn't been for a school deadline for quite some time. I know I'm marginally good at a lot of things.. but I don't yet know what I'm great at.
My friend Amanda is great at teaching. She has kids from prior classes that seek her out on Facebook and want to be friends with her. She goes to events of her students.. she goes to school dances, etc. These are things that I know would make me a horrible educator... I can't imagine students feeling the same way about me.
Now though, I'm not sure anyone really knows what it is they want to do until they fall into it. I'm not worried about it anymore. I'm not worried about ANYTHING anymore. Don't get me wrong, I'm anxious about not having a place to live set in stone.. and I'm anxious about not having a car at the moment.. and I'm anxious about getting everything ready school-wise before my vacation, but I know everything will work out just fine. Things will be just fine.
Let's face it.. they always are.
So what's there to worry about anyway?
Showing posts with label past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label past. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Endings and Beginnings
School has finally wrapped up for the semester and it has really hit home that I am four classes away from graduation. Years ago I started college at TCC, took a couple of night classes while I was working and then decided that I wanted to work instead of going to school. I applied for every office job in the newspaper and finally found a lovely little reception job 30 minutes from home that didn't mind that I lacked office experience. I worked there for a couple of years before deciding that I needed to go away to college. So, I applied to Stephen F. Austin and trekked to Nacogdoches, TX where I went to school for exactly one semester before realizing that I wasn't a very good student when I didn't have a full-time job. I thought it was too expensive, that my parents wanted me to come home, and honestly, the 9/11 ordeal scared the shit out of me. So I came home, and took some classes at TCC off and on for a few years.
It wasn't until I got married and realized that my office job career wasn't taking me at all where I wanted to be, that I decided it was time to get serious about going back to school. So I went back full-time, worked full-time, had a full-time family. It was stressful, it was rewarding, and I loved it in a slightly jaded way. I got my Associate's Degree in May of 2007, and stupidly didn't go to my graduation because my then husband didn't feel like getting out of the house. I remember feeling incredibly slighted by the fact that no one in my immediate married family thought that this achievement was worth getting dressed up and leaving the house for.
I remember going to the information session at Texas Woman's, by myself, remember touring the campus and deciding that this was where I was going to finish out my college work. And I remember being so excited to start and not having anyone at the home I was living at who really even cared. My husband talked about how much it was going to cost, what little time I was going to have to spend with the family, asked if I really wanted to go back... and I did. So I got registered for classes, and after what would likely be noted as "the worst night of my life", I drove out of a hotel parking lot, after seeing something I never thought I would see and my best friend, Tiffany (now my roommate), and I drove to Denton to get my books to start my first semester at TWU.
Now it is nearly two years later and I am four classes away from graduating from college. graduating from college! I have no idea what this little piece of paper will mean to me, although I know I will have to go on to start getting certified to teach, and I know that it means another chapter of my life is coming to a close. I told myself at the beginning of school at TWU that each semester I would drive out to the campus to get books even though my classes are all online.. and each time I drive out there, I pass by the hotel. I remember the Spring semester after my divorce I was incredibly angry at seeing the giant green sign on the side of the highway, one semester I drove by it without realizing I had missed it at all. Now I drive by it thankful, I usually say a little prayer to God thanking Him for the way that things turned out. But as weird as it may sound, I'm going to miss driving out there terribly when I graduate.
It will be another thing that was tied to the beginning of a new life that is over. I am not the same girl I was on September 1, 2007 when we drove out 35 to Denton, but I had no idea what I was on my way to becoming. I had no idea the strength and determination I had within myself, nor the resolve that I held. I had no idea that time would pass so quickly, and that everything that happened would feel like it was a lifetime ago. I had no idea that I would be happy again, or that I would feel full of possibility and life would once again hold promise.
So I find myself, in May of 2009 terrified to graduate college, but knowing that it is just another terrifying thing that will change my life for the better. I will be 27 in 13 days and I feel like my life is just beginning, like I've finally figured out who I am.
So farewell to the past, it's served me well. Great things are on the horizon.
It wasn't until I got married and realized that my office job career wasn't taking me at all where I wanted to be, that I decided it was time to get serious about going back to school. So I went back full-time, worked full-time, had a full-time family. It was stressful, it was rewarding, and I loved it in a slightly jaded way. I got my Associate's Degree in May of 2007, and stupidly didn't go to my graduation because my then husband didn't feel like getting out of the house. I remember feeling incredibly slighted by the fact that no one in my immediate married family thought that this achievement was worth getting dressed up and leaving the house for.
I remember going to the information session at Texas Woman's, by myself, remember touring the campus and deciding that this was where I was going to finish out my college work. And I remember being so excited to start and not having anyone at the home I was living at who really even cared. My husband talked about how much it was going to cost, what little time I was going to have to spend with the family, asked if I really wanted to go back... and I did. So I got registered for classes, and after what would likely be noted as "the worst night of my life", I drove out of a hotel parking lot, after seeing something I never thought I would see and my best friend, Tiffany (now my roommate), and I drove to Denton to get my books to start my first semester at TWU.
Now it is nearly two years later and I am four classes away from graduating from college. graduating from college! I have no idea what this little piece of paper will mean to me, although I know I will have to go on to start getting certified to teach, and I know that it means another chapter of my life is coming to a close. I told myself at the beginning of school at TWU that each semester I would drive out to the campus to get books even though my classes are all online.. and each time I drive out there, I pass by the hotel. I remember the Spring semester after my divorce I was incredibly angry at seeing the giant green sign on the side of the highway, one semester I drove by it without realizing I had missed it at all. Now I drive by it thankful, I usually say a little prayer to God thanking Him for the way that things turned out. But as weird as it may sound, I'm going to miss driving out there terribly when I graduate.
It will be another thing that was tied to the beginning of a new life that is over. I am not the same girl I was on September 1, 2007 when we drove out 35 to Denton, but I had no idea what I was on my way to becoming. I had no idea the strength and determination I had within myself, nor the resolve that I held. I had no idea that time would pass so quickly, and that everything that happened would feel like it was a lifetime ago. I had no idea that I would be happy again, or that I would feel full of possibility and life would once again hold promise.
So I find myself, in May of 2009 terrified to graduate college, but knowing that it is just another terrifying thing that will change my life for the better. I will be 27 in 13 days and I feel like my life is just beginning, like I've finally figured out who I am.
So farewell to the past, it's served me well. Great things are on the horizon.
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