Threes?

I'm aware of the superstitious belief that bad things happen in threes, but I'm curious to discover if that applies to annoying things as well.

Case in point:

1. Our security alarm has seemingly developed a mind of it's own, therefore forewarning us of an obviously invisible attacker every twenty minutes. Though I am appreciative of it's vocal concern for our safety and outrage at any intruder (imaginary or otherwise), I fear our neighbors are considering a plan of attack themselves if it continues its cacophonous tirade throughout the night. Again.

2. As if incessant beeping wasn't enough to disrupt these last few nights of summer sleep, my toilet has been eavesdropping on my inner dialogue condemning my severe lack of exercise and has decided to make up for my reluctance for physical exertion by taking matters into its own hands. By running, I mean. For hours. All morning, in fact. Of course he is aware that in addition to the physical satisfaction he may be getting, he is also quite successfully running up our water bill. A fact, that, I've discovered in a brief exchange with him, he apparently doesn't value as highly as physical maintenance and extrinsic motivation. Honestly, he may have a point. A jog sounds like a brilliant reprieve from the deafening sound of rushing water emanating from my bathroom.

Thus, I am just the conductor in this symphony of audible intrusions, and almost afraid to wonder if this mysterious law of threes does in fact apply to things obnoxious in nature, what could possibly happen next?

I'll be sure to let you know.

Grin and Bear It

It has finally come.  Glancing over at the alarm going off in our bedroom to signify that it was time for Rich to get up, I rolled over with deep indignation.  In less than a week, I will be waking an hour earlier than him.  Walking zombie-like into the kitchen to make the coffee.  Turning on the hot water, then the cold water.  Dancing around in the bathroom waiting for the water to regulate.  Sleepily making a lunch that always seems to be missing something-like, the sandwich- and joining the rest of the working world in the that blasted line for the parkway.  

At precisely 7:35 I will be staring at the inside of my classroom instead of the inside of my eyelids.  For those of you who scoff at the notion of a teacher complaining after she has gotten nearly three months off, let me explain something to you.  I was unable to unclench my fists or my jaw until mid-July from school stress.  I finally began sleeping through the night toward the end of the second week of August.  And then, in the third week I was back to organizing, preparing, studying and stressing over going back to school.  Total vacation hours? TWO WEEKS.  Woe is the life of a teacher.

I have applied to more jobs that I could count over the summer.  Jobs with the allure of only working 6-8 hours a day and leaving the work THERE before coming home.  A job where what I do would be appreciated and respected by functioning adults.  A job where I would look forward to going ...where I would feel called to be...where I could utilize my skills and talents...where I wouldn't have to be concerned if that student I failed would be waiting for me by my car...or outside of my door...with a weapon...or a chair...or worse...a parent.  Where I could drink a cup of coffee, for goodness sake and wear open-toed shoes.

Alas, here I am, public school teacher. Again.  

So, rather that let this simple fact overshadow my life this year (those of you who know me understand that last year I'm pretty sure "myself" disappeared into a bundle of self-deprecating, second-guessing, stressing, sleepless, panic-attacking mess) I have already decided to approach this school year with a new vision and manner in mind-and am pleading your help in this mountainous endeavor.

Fact: I would rather not be teaching.

Fact: Regardless of how I feel about it, I WILL be teaching.

And sooooo, I am determined to grin and bear it, so they say.  Make the best of it.  But am praying for even more than that.  I'm not sure why God wants me in the classroom, but it's apparent that he does.  So, with that knowledge, I will do my best to wake with a smile, leave my stressing at the door, approach the day with something I love in mind.  I will plan things to look forward to every month...every weekend...everyday-that's where you come in, if you choose. Dinner with a friend, a movie, a new book, a weekend away. I will thank God daily for the job that I have that provides the support our family needs and a fresh supply of spit-balls in my purse.  

At work, instead of being a grammar pusher, a paragraph stickler or a homework nazi it will be my main daily goal to make my students laugh.  To teach them that being who they are is awesome enough-they don't need to be anything else.  To revel in their differences instead of beating each other up over them. To encourage them that the world stretches outside of their city boundaries, to read the newspaper, explore their own thoughts and ideas instead of spewing out everyone else's without even thinking about it, to communicate effectively(preferably without the F-word) and be normal, civilized human beings who will (hopefully) be able to write and read.  Doesn't sound like a tall order, I'm sure, but you haven't witnessed a classroom full of thirty hungry, bored, tired and hot seventeen year olds who amuse themselves by seeing who could hit me first with a paper airplane.  Yes, they still make those.

I, of course, will document my progress on both the attitude adjustment and the paper airplane problem.  Like I've said in previous posts, I am attempting this thing of not letting circumstances decide my future- or take my joy.  So, if there's anyone interested in a hay ride and a pumpkin picking excursion, my September fun-day slot is open! 

Sacrifice and Surrender

I'm an addict.

I'm told that the first step toward active recovery is to admit the problem. Therefore, with pause, deep breaths and morose confidence, I am laying it on the line. I am addicted to sacrifice.

Don't tell me that you're unaware of what this means. I love to sacrifice. I live to sacrifice. I used to like to disillusion myself and call it part of my selflessness. My husband calls it "Baptist Guilt".

Though not my vocal belief if anyone were to ask me, I seem to have lived my life according to certain rules.
1. If I sacrifice my desires, it will be pleasing to God and I will be rid of guilt.
2. If I sacrifice my opportunities, it will be pleasing to God and I will be rid of guilt.
3. If I give up on anything and everything that has the possibility of bringing me any happiness, I've got a first class ticket on the freedom train and be rid of my guilt.

Please don't misunderstand. God does call us to make certain sacrifices, all pleasing in his sight and biblical when our hearts are motivated properly. But, did you notice a pattern in my aforementioned rules? My whole life has been motivated by eradicating guilt.

Does that even make sense? Would people be lining up and around the corner to sign up for a God who takes pleasure in watching you suffer? Who requires you to forsake all that stirs your heart and forces you to settle for something that will never make you happy? Who would dictate that unhappiness is, in fact, the very sign that signifies what a good little Christian you are? I certainly don't believe that about the God I serve, but the way I have lived my life has reflected something different entirely.

People use the words sacrifice and surrender as if they are interchangeable, but in fact they are worlds apart in ways that I am only beginning to discover. Sacrifice means to give something up for someone else. It invites images of suffering, of pain, of loss, of struggle. I've relished this image and adopted it as my living blue-print. But surrender, oh, surrender means to let go. To offer it up. To lay it down. To hand over the control. That's different.

I am slowly learning the joys and depths of surrender. I am lethargically remembering the verse where God promises the desires of our hearts. That I should know the plans he has for me. Plans to prosper me, not to harm me-plans to give me hope and a future. I am carefully prying finger after guilty finger from my view of God. Guilt is selfish. Holding onto my guilt is selfish. Believing that if I give up everything I might have been called or created to do, I will be saved is selfish- and not aligned with my core belief in Jesus at all. I'm praying that God replaces my definitions of sacrifice and surrender with his own.

Introduction

All four of you who read my blog on occasion have most likely picked up on the fact that, well, I like to be funny. Or rather, I like to think that I'm funny, therefore write about normal, silly, everyday things in a somewhat humorous manner. Whether that is always accomplished, I cannot say, but the world is full of long lines and pse&g bills, why add to the mess with my own short comings?

But-all of you post public school attenders know a lead-in when you hear one-there's been something on my mind that has settled deep in the recesses of my heart that I'm not sure what to with. And, when I'm not sure what to do with anything it generally ends up on paper. Or in song lyrics. Or computer screens. Or consumed along with large quantities of dark chocolate brownies. Judging by the waist band on my last pair of sweat pants, I'd like to avoid the latter, if you don't mind.

Being in your twenties, I believe, in a short, vulgar, unintelligent word, sucks. We have graduated from college. We have moved out on our own. Some of us, myself included, have in amidst all the madness, found the love of their life and have gotten married. Whatever your situation is when you've landed smack dab in the middle of those golden years I can bet that the words forming in your mouth are the same in the mouths of hundreds. Thousands even. Especially mine.

Now what???

We can't find a job, and when we've found one it has nothing to do with our education, and definitely miles away from our passions. We're too poor to purchase houses and make too much to qualify for any assistance. We can't go back to school to become more marketable until we've paid off all the loans we took out to go to school the first time. We can't have kids because we can't support them financially or otherwise-nor are we even sure we want them, that's just the next step, isn't it? We are trying at all costs to prove that we are valuable members of society as we're moving back in with our moms in droves due to high rent, higher living costs, and due to all the stress, higher medical bills from all the Xoloft we're consuming. I'm trying my best to rein in my language considering I have to be back teaching in the classroom in a few weeks, but, what the hell???

I haven't figured it all out. Not even a little bit. But, I know that we have a God who is omnipotent. Always forgiving. Always loving. And that we, often, miss the message entirely. In the next few posts I'm going to be exploring why this perpetual state of hopelessness exists in my life when I know that I serve a God who offers all hope. What I think is holding me back from accepting all that God has been longing to give me. Why I settle not often, but all the time, for things I'm not passionate about, or even desire. Why I equate the word risk with the word irresponsible. Why I could tell you exactly what I believe God wants from me, and why I've refused to give it to him. And why all of those things are exactly what is weighing down my generation in an anchor made up of anti-depressants, late night bar runs and The Secret.

This certainly wasn't the plan or the layout for this little writing space, but, if my musings do nothing other than lay common ground, I'm fine with that. And don't worry, in the next few weeks I'll throw in a post here and there about Supporting your local Starbucks, My contempt for the color Pink and my new obsession with the Twilight series just to keep an even keel:)

Reclaiming Autumn

It's begun. Produce at the grocery store is being decoratively described as "harvest". I went to Michael's with my sister-in-law and limped desperately, eyes closed past ceramic pumpkins. I gasped for air in Pier 1, trying to clear my nostrils of the cloying cinnamon smell. Walmart is advertising the coolest new pens I've ever seen. The sweet scent of coconut sun block and grilled hamburgers is fading faster than I do in direct sunlight. I can deny it no longer. Fall is coming.

Before I began teaching, autumn was my favorite season. I loved it so much, in fact, my husband and I got married in October- the most beautiful month of the year, in my opinion. It boasts of all my favorite colors: holy golds, vibrant reds, crossing guard orange, deep chocolate browns and chestnuts. It swings in on my favorite scents: spice and apples and cobblers and coffee and the crisp coldness that clings right to the front of your face- the tip of your nose. I celebrated the first fall after graduating from college- finally! Never again will this beautiful season be marred by the anxiety ridden first day of school. Never again will it signify new notebooks, new pencils, new friends, new responsibilities, new pep rallies, new shoes. I admit I drank hot apple cider every day that year. I rolled around in the falling leaves. I purchased aforementioned dreaded ceramic pumpkins. And put them everywhere. Even in the bathroom. Never a good idea, by the way.

Sigh. My jubilance was short lived. Why, you ask? Because I am currently sitting in my living room, on August 12th, in a sea of rough sketches, all displaying how I will be setting up my classroom in a few (very short) weeks. You've got it. The one who waited her whole life to be free from the vice-like grip of public school now works in one. Not just any one, mind you. But the very similar institution in which my last years of adolescence were spent wishing I was foraging the rain forests in Borneo, battling life-sized tarantulas. Here I am, Mrs. Shannon, High School English Teacher. Die, Autumn sunsets. Bloody red. Dirty bar, flashing neon sign orange. Die.

Of course, it doesn't help that at this time last year, my husband and I were reading up on London, Dublin and Edinburgh and buying trial sized, well, everything. Oh, because we were going there. In September. For three weeks. Alright. Enough. All of that was not intended to make it into this post, but being that blogs often have a mind of their own, it couldn't be helped. I hope this isn't the onset of some abnormal schizophrenic behavior, granted, it is my mind regardless. I digress. (but those who happen to diagnose as a profession are free to get back to me) Getting down to the real reason....

I have decided to reclaim my season. It is my season, after all. So, I'm a teacher. A lot about that sucks right now, but that is for a different post entirely. I am downright refusing that minute detail to hinder my joy. I WILL NOT purchase one new pen, no matter how cool it is. I will plug my nose to the new notebook smell and breath in the macintosh apples instead. I will bake, leisurely even, as if there are no papers to grade. I will go on hay rides and eat cider donuts and salted pumpkin seeds until I fall blissfully into a foma (food-coma, for those scratching heads in bewilderment) or throw up. Whichever comes first. I will wear red shoes, no matter how many of my students taunt me. What do they know? They wear purple knee socks with mini skirts. Have they ever seen my first grade picture? Helllllo? The only thing they're missing is the side-pony tail. I will smile into the sunshine, watch the sunset every night from my porch( if we still have one ; which is, again, another post entirely) go for walks in sweaters and Birkenstocks and never once dream of being late for class. Well, the last one is already broken considering it's begun already. And I was not only late, but naked and without teeth as well.

I have allowed life's circumstances to take from me what is mine for too long. I'm placing my flag right in the middle of that pumpkin pie. I'm "going to the mattresses". Autumn is mine.

The Secret

I understand that my neighbors could be assuming that I consider myself of certain princess status since my car has been in the drive-way throughout the entire day during this summer. I feel that I should explain to everyone I pass on my morning walk, "So nice to have off! I'm a teacher, you know. I'm employed, just not during the summer. Not a kept woman. Oh, no. I pull my weight." Smile. Wave. Pride restored. Go back inside for napping at noon.

However, on my walks I've discovered something. I pass the same people every morning. The same handful of people walk briskly passed my front porch, dragged by a large Huskie or pulling a petite terrier at 7 am, 8, 9, and 10. It was only this morning that I mulled over this phenomenon and light radiated from my (under-used as of late) cranium. They all have one thing in common! I paused to breathe, then uttered the awe-inspiring question: Could dog owners be exempt from the working world?

There they are. Every single day. Young women smiling in their matching pink lycra, skinny Starbucks latte in hand, scampering right behind the little rat disguised as a chihuahua, leaving their Juicy calling card shaking down the sidewalk. Stopping at corners. Reading People on benches. Smiling and nodding, plastic baggie in hand. The older, distinguished looking men come later with beagles and greyhounds. Never in suits. Never wearing a watch. Flashing veneers that could have paid my yearly salary. Sauntering even, taunting me. Poor girl. She'll never figure it out. Smelling Parisan- the expensive Parisan, not Paris-in-July Parisan, which I understand is more offensive than middle-school boys playing basketball. Occasionally, in groups. Discussing the stock market and gas prices, stopping to give a pat to his charge. I fought the urge to call out to them. "Took off today?" "Nice week for a vacation, huh?" "What do you for a living, if you don't mind me asking?" I mean, it's utterly impossible that the entire Montclair community is made up of educators all enjoying the plight of summer. They know something.

However, I abstain from embarrassing myself with such thoughtless questions. It's not fair to exploit my insecurities in others, especially complete strangers. And, if I was keeping such a prized secret, I would be reluctant to share as well. Little do they know that I am finally on to them. Ha.

All of these years of trying to figure out how I can get out of waking at 6 am, coming home at 4 only to do it all over again for 5 straight days in a row and the answer was right in front of my nose-or porch. Be gone, get rich quick schemes. Silence, at home web companies. Enough, private tutoring, car-washing, apartment cleaning, home buisness operating. It all boils down to one thing. I have seen the light. I'm privy to the secret. I've wised-up. I'm getting a dog.