Progress

I am happy to report that things have calmed down since my last post.  I made it through the first assignment, and was able to find at least a couple of intelligent things to say.  I was also comforted to find out that several others in the class had the same sort of difficulties I did.  Knowing you're not alone helps quite a bit.

In the meantime, I continue to adjust to my new life.  Being back at grad school and walking around campus with all the young people makes me feel weird.  Training for a non-musical-non-teaching career feels very foreign still.  But it is making connections with enough parts of me to tell me that this is still probably the best option available, that there just may be a latent skill that I can market buried somewhere in here, and that this may be something I can enjoy.  In some ways I am glad that the classes are progressing slowly, but I also want to really have a chance to see what this is all about and stop discussing the theory.  The sooner I try my hand at the real thing, the sooner I know if I'm cut out for this.  So I'm trying to be patient.

I am also adjusting to having assignments and homework, and having 4 kids.  Time is at a premium.  And it's very hard for me to get an assignment on a Tuesday and know that I likely can't even touch it until Friday.  I am the opposite of a procrastinator.  I hate that feeling.  If it were up to me, I'd come home, get the assignment done by 3 in the morning, and relax the rest of the week.  I can't do that.  It's difficult for me.

As far as the emotional side...I've had talks with several people lately, and the fact is, I am only getting through the emotions by not thinking about any of it.  Not the healthiest way to deal with it but I'm afraid it's what I have right now.  I don't have the luxury to think about a Plan or a path.  All I can do is look straight down and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  I can't look forward and I can't look back, one is too scary and one hurts too much.  All I've got is the present, and the present is actually okay right now - ironic that in previous posts I've lamented being stuck in the present.  Now it's saving me.  

I know that time heals, but I've never had to heal this big a wound.  I'm getting used to the idea that it might never actually heal, but that I'm going to simply learn to live with it.  There's a sadness that lives at the edge of my awareness and I can't see that anything is ever going to defeat that.  There was so much lost, stolen, given up...and really none of that can be replaced, ever.  Again it's funny how life has flipflopped.  I would say that teaching as a career is a collection of miserable moments that add up to feeling good about what you do.  Now, I'm entering a time of my life where the moments themselves aren't that bad at all - my day to day life is pretty pleasant.  But it's not going to add up to much.  Nothing is going to be as rewarding and satisfying as the last 13 years.  So again, I'm focusing on the moments.  The moments are all I've got.

I know this all sounds pretty grim.  Maybe it is.  All I know is that I'm managing the sadness, and I will continue to do so.  It should also be said that this blog has again become the repository for the negative feelings.  In some sense I have to vomit the sadness all over the screen here so I can function in the real world.  Exaggeration?  Hyperbole?  For sure.  But a kernel of truth.  Just accept anything you read here with a disclaimer that it's going to skew to the hopeless and is not a fair representation of my mental state at any given moment.

The fact remains, that life should be enough.  I may never again be as rewarded and as satisfied as I was previously, but I'm still alive, and that's a gift.  I will continue to try to remember that.

Matt