Listen to Your Heart and Your Mother

There is this song I heard this summer at a Florence and the Machine concert. Sitting underneath the dark wooden balcony on puffed-up plush maroon velvet, I heard Florence, a magical fairy dancer that pranced around the stage like a majestic unicorn brought to life, sing these words for the first time and it changed me.

"Just keep following the heartlines on your hands...."

Broken, missing my husband and the normal life we had when we fell in love, I started weeping uncontrollably in the middle of the concert.

"Keep it up, I know you can."

Emily, my dear friend and concert mate, simply looked over and squeezed my hand. I was lost, terribly confused and had no idea where to go or what to do or if there was anything that I could do. I was miserable and worst of all, felt stuck, like there was nothing to do but wait. I drove home from her house that night and listened to that song on repeat. Something about following the "heartlines" resonated with my hands, and my mothers hands and our skinny hands we had together.

My mother had these amazing hands. Her fingers were beautifully slender and I grew up watching them dance around the piano keys so gracefully, like finger-shaped ballet dancers. She was always making cookies and when she would scoop balls of dough in her hands, she would have to go back later and pick dried cookie dough out of her wedding ring. I am lucky enough to wear the same ring and even inherited her skinny fingers, which she inherited from Grams. Three generations of middle-named Jane bakers with skinny fingers. My hands remind me of both of them, stirring the cookie dough, dancing them around piano keys, measuring them against mine, palm to palm, as mine grew and grew into their own, taut skin around tiny bones.

Remembering my mother has always been a painful experience. I always start laughing or smiling but it ends in pain as the absence is still so profound and significant. It makes me feel hollow. But avoiding remembering might have been worse that I ever imagined. The feeling of being lost, not knowing what to do or where to go, feels more like being disconnected. My mother was a lover of wild things, stray animals and people, immigrants and the homeless. She took off at an early age to live in Haiti to build churches and schools. And all of these things probably scared her, but they never stopped her. She listened to some voice inside of her that made fear insignificant, irrelevant. And forgetting her because it's painful has made me feel really lost and unsure of where I'm supposed to be, as if I've unplugged the very part of me that translates the
but I'm scared into do it anyway.

The directions to my new home are simple: I-80 West to Tahoe City, California, where I will settle my stuff in and hug my husband for the first time in three weeks and be in the mountains and live. Past that, I know nothing. There is a giant void after that that hangs in the air and, sometimes, makes me so scared that I wonder if I'm crazy.

But when I force myself to acknowledge this doubt as fear, that's all it is, fear, and I quiet that, I start to hear something else that fear has always blocked out: pure, simple possibility. Fear has only kept me into routines that feel comfortable and familiar and less scary but have also kept me in patterns with less possibility and living a just okay life. Remembering what got my mom across the ocean to a small village in Haiti is important: not the scary doubt that she may get murdered by the militia, but the possibility that she could help hungry kids and teach them about love and kindness and English. I need to plug myself into that moment; not into being "fearless," but having fear, acknowledging it's outline and refusing to let it win. That is the only direction I need to go in. That and west.

Forgetting where you're from is the only way to get lost, but not knowing where you're going on purpose, and skimming out the fear and doubt and plans, is called adventure. Maybe trusting your guts, your heartlines, isn't a bad idea. Maybe that's the only way to get where you really need to be.

Week Insomnia and Random Smile Faces

I don't know what it is, but smile faces make me smile. If you put a smile on a lobster and attach it to a bag of nails, I will think about buying that bag of nails. (To be clear, I do not need a bag of nails.) It makes me feel like an elementary kid again, how your teacher would put a smile face sticker on your paper and you felt like you just won the lottery. My students are the same way. Smile faces just make you smile. And even if someone puts them in a dumb place, like a bathroom stall or on the back of a race horse, it's still smile-inducing.

I had some pretty intense insomnia nearly a week after returning from Tahoe. Here is what I tried:
Hot tea
Meditation
Reading before bed
Countin' sheep
Melatonin
Watching movies before bed
Running around like a crazy person as to exhaust myself into a coma
Putting my probs in a bubble and watching them float away

Nothing worked. Miserably, I just couldn't turn my mind off. The minute my eyes started to get heavy from reading/watching, I hurriedly turned off my bedside lamp and closed my eyes. And the minute I closed my eyes, I started thinking:

How am I going to make money?
How much do I need to make?
What if I don't get a job?
How am I going to pay my car payment?
How am I going to afford goat cheese again?

This went on from Sunday to Saturday. Every night, no more than 4-5 hours of sleep. It was driving me crazy. My driving was questionable, I would forget if I brushed my teeth 10 minutes after I had, forget my coffee in weird places, and I still can't find my water bottle.

I was getting obsessed with how to land this amazing California teaching job that solved all the problems. Sometimes I would daydream about the job that would double my income....
I could shop at Ann Taylor!
I could pay off my student loans!
I could buy a newer car!
I could get better at croquet! (Honest moment: I could learn what the non-sandwich version of croquette is....)

One of the movies I watched before bed on Friday was "Happy." These genius people set out to research what makes people happy, from India to Japan to Africa to the States. They found that people who generally focus on extrinsic happiness, like acquiring wealth, status and popularity are found generally less happier than people who focus on intrinsic motivation, like having positive relationships and caring for others who need it. Also they talked about this thing called "flow" which I really connected with. You know those moments when you feel like you have no worries and nothing matters but being in that moment? No surprise, the more people stay in "flow" the happier they are. And it was also very apparent that Americans were among the most unhappy people in the world, mostly because we are chasing down material goods that only make us satisfied temporarily, but it doesn't bring us closer to really being fulfilled.

It's amazing to me how important nice cars, nice clothes, nice houses, nice stuff are to people. In some circles, having these things seem more important that having a job you don't completely loathe or having good relationships with others. It seems like everyone points to earning more money as a goal, but this just brutally highlights the hidden message that people think money will bring more happiness. I know everyone is used to the whole "money can't buy happiness" but I'm not sure people actually believe that. Otherwise, more people would be content with less and I just don't think that's true. Everyone wants more and everyone strives to make more so they can have more.

"We want more, like, you really like it, so you want more."

But in the spirit of one of my favorite Pinterest quotes, I counter the cute ATT&T commercial with this:

"If you're not happy with what you already have, what makes you think having more will make you happier?"

We are the richest nation in the world, possessing more than anyone else on the planet and yet we can't seem to be happy with that?

Well, because maybe we're all in love with our stuff more than we are with our friends, our husbands, our jobs, our life. Maybe we have put money first, staying at a job we hate because we have bills to pay, because we want to keep our stuff. Maybe we married Prince Charming for money and shouldn't be shocked when we aren't "Cinderella Happily Ever After." Maybe having the nicest biggest house, car, airplane isn't the answer, okay?

I get really sad sometimes. Life makes us sad. There are things that happen to all of us that makes us cry and go into a dark place. But instead of buying a sweater to make us feel better, I think the answer is to focus on "flow," that place where you laugh so hard your stomach hurts and you cry or you smile so wide your face hurts because you're just used to fake smiling; go there instead of the mall. Let your grandma make you pancakes and sausage and eat one too many (okay, eat two). Let the good in and let it affect you. And seek out strange smile faces in strange places. Even leave one or two. Because we don't need any more stuff, we just need to love what we already have. And smile at smile faces on lobsters.

I slept last night and it was the best sleep of my life. It was only for 8 hours but it was intense and I didn't wake up once. I didn't think about job interviews, if I needed new tires for the mountains or how to say goodbye to my dad, I just closed my eyes and slept, because my life is good and the day was over and I did the best that I could. And in order to get to the next place, the place I am supposed to be in, and let go of the place I grew out of, I need to change the way I'm thinking about this.

And in an effort to do so, here is my life lesson squeezed out of lingering insomnia and a whole lot of clarity:
I hereby let go of all the what ifs.
I'm going to be happy in this place,
with or without money to throw at Ann Taylor,
with or without a brand new Range Rover,
with or without a cashmere blanket for Oatmeal to poo in,
because all that stuff is temporary and unimportant.

Because what if I sold my car and rode my bike, Mabel, to my coffee shop job? And what if, in the winter, we shared the Jeep and went everywhere together? And what if me and Paul and Oatmeal shared a studio apartment on the lake and ate ramen noodles and camped for vacation? Isn't that the life we want to lead anyway?

Yeah.

My life is good because of who is in it, not what is in in.

(That should be a lobster-smile-face billboard.)

Bear-Crawling Through May All the Way to Tahoe

On Thursday afternoon at 5:46 p.m., Paul and I started our long trek across the country. Our plan was to make it to Coralville, Iowa our first night, Rock Springs, Wyoming the second and our Tahoe home, Granlibakken in Tahoe City, California before nightfall on Saturday. All of the planning, packing, strategizing boiled down to this epic road trip with the Jeep packed so tight the back of it skimmed the back tires every time the road dipped a bit. The food was lousy, we didn't sleep much at all in our modest hotel rooms with lumpy pillows that didn't have any familiar smells, we ran out of good music as the internet failed through the most rural parts of the country, but once we made it to our Tahoe Home, things changed.

I don't know who put it in my head that I can't have exactly what I want but I've been riding this notion that I have to compromise. Bad love is better than no love. Bad friends are better than no friends. Bad jobs are better than no jobs. Dream big, but dream realistic. Make money and do what you love on the weekends. No one is going to pay you to do what you want. And the biggest, most debilitating lie that I've taken as the truth: plan for everything, always and have 9 plans for everything, always.

People just fall in line with all of this. They take it as the truth and anyone question it, they just come up with 492 examples of how that didn't work.
"Well my cousin tried to write from home and she lost her house!"
"Well my brother moved to California and he had to move back because it was so expensive!"
"Well what are you going to do if you can't find a job? What if what if what if?"

No wonder no one ever leaves. It's too scary, uncertain, full of variables, no deal.

On Sunday, I was standing on the side of a mountain looking down at Lake Tahoe with my husband and two of the greatest friends I've been given.  I veered off the path and laid in a hammock on the side of a mountain. I threw a snowball in May while getting sunburned. I drank coffee on a dock with my feet dangling above the prettiest body of water I've ever seen (sorry Lake Michigan). I took more pictures than I have in three months. All in 5 hours, I had the best day of my whole year. And  I even forged a river by bear-crawling a log.

That wasn't easy. Eve and Alex went first and flew right to the other side. I took two steps and started shaking. I turned back.
I was shaking like I was standing in a cave of snow.
I started thinking about everything that could happen.
What if I end up in the river? What if I'm swept away? What if I hit my head on the log and die?
I took a deep breath and bear-crawled it. One hand at a time, one knee at a time, without looking down, I finally made it to the end. We high-fived. And I saw views I've never seen in my life, all made possible by that log that I bear-crawled.

And it took me being out of the mountains a mere 25 hours to go back to compromising.

What if I don't find a job? What if we're so poor we can't pay our bills? What if Oatmeal has to eat the discount hay because we can't afford the orchard hay? And once you let the what if's in, they don't stop.

But after watching baseball with my dad and eating some farm asparagus, I tried to clear up my brain.
A little Tahoe wisdom brought back from thee most beautiful place in the universe:

It's the biggest sham in the world to think you have control of anything that matters. Even if you live in the same place you're whole life, and there's nothing wrong with that, life is a variable. And we find solace in keeping our routine the same because it gives us the illusion of control.

But you are not in control. Sorry, Charlie.

Everyone talks about how I'm so brave for just leaving on faith, but I'm just as scared as anyone would be at this time in their life. I don't have an address. I don't have an apartment. I don't know where I'll be working in August, where I'll be next year, what I'll even be doing in three months. These are more variables than I've ever had in my whole life.

But I can sit here and be scared of strangers at the Kroger on Monroe or I can really make my fear work and move across the country. If I'm going to be scared anyway, I might as well make it count and have a mountain on my side.

Because I don't have control of the big things. I could choke on a ham sammich tomorrow. I could die in a fiery plane crash. A stranger could murder me next year. And I truly believe that if I need a job, I'll get a job. If I need an apartment, I'll find an apartment. I believe that things will be okay. Because even if I believe or I don't, life's going to do whatever it wants anyway. So why not look at what could happen instead of what couldn't?

So here it is: if you want to do something, if you want to pack up your car and be in a place that makes you smile ear to ear and say, "Oh my god" like you can't believe this place exists, or you just want to not have a terrible job, then just do it, change it. You might fail but at least you tried. And there's also a huge chance that you'll do great things and get exactly what you want.

I'll figure it out. I always have. And in the mean time, I'm going to see some of the most amazing things I've ever seen with the other half of the Yonaus home in time for dinner.

Read. Share. Write a Letter to Your Department of Education.

I was finally able to get a meeting with my student's mom who had a medical emergency after the reading OAAs two weeks ago. She released his name and story so I can send this off to Columbus. Please repost and share. This is too important to ignore.

An open letter to our senators, representatives, educators who have had enough, educational advocates who feel the same, parents, and people who care:


Danny has been a bright spot in my room since the first day of school. Every day, he greets me at the door with a shy smile on his way to his seat to work diligently on his morning work. Danny has always been the student to tell us something more in science. As we studied crystals during our cold winter months, Danny told the class before I could by raising a quiet hand:
“Did you know that crystals can multiply? Multiply means that something gets bigger."
He looked around the room as he explained. I saw a future teacher, science professor.  He lights up when he shares his knowledge to others and I can’t help but smile every time.

Danny is a model student. In a class of other kids with varying challenges and at different levels, he is kind to his peers and polite to adults, even when my science doesn’t go in depth enough for his knowledge or if I teach a different way to solve a double digit math problem as he can do them all in his head. He tries to be patient when he can and always follows school rules but thoughtfully and respectfully questions something if he doesn’t see direct logic in it. All signs of a lifetime learner with loads of potential to grow.

During the Ohio Achievement Assessment, Danny was not himself. As other 3rd graders labored through the test with heavy anxious sighs, Danny started to breathe heavily, rubbing his eyes methodically. I stopped him several times and asked if he needed a break. “No I’m fine,” he replied, and continued to move his pencil under every single word in the 5-page story he was being graded on.
When his breathing became worse, I urged him to stop.
“Danny, you don’t have to do this. Let’s just be done.”
He started to cry, heartbreaking tears from a student I had never seen upset, and muttered, “I want to finish, Ms. Ronau.”

Danny is a bright kid, one of the brightest I have seen spanning two school districts across three separate school years. However, a test that is meant to measure what he knows brought him to a medical emergency.  Danny was not able to calm down. He was rushed to the emergency room after his mother picked him up early from school. He was unable to return to breathing regularly on his own and was so distraught that he continued to scream and cry throughout the rest of the day. It wasn’t until several hours after the test that he was able to calm down, and needed a medical doctor’s assistance to do so. His mother stated that she has never seen her son so upset.

                This is an important story to remember. We have somehow forgotten that these are children and testing these students to the point of breakdowns is callous, cruel and extremely inappropriate. As an educator and an advocate of all children, I urge you to start investing the millions of dollars spent on these assessments into a better way to measure our children without making them sick.  A bright, happy, well-adjusted 3rd grader who loves attending school doesn’t deserve this, and, frankly, none of us do.

Testing and Panicking and Growing

One of my third graders had a panic attack during the reading OAAs yesterday. I've had many so I knew it right away: the shallow breathing, the look of terror that slowly comes on you that leads to hysterical crying and making soothing repetitive sounds in a last ditch effort to calm yourself down. I had a para yesterday so we were able to get him to the nurse but he was so distraught that he went home and didn't  come back today.

As I knelt by him as he was trying to make his way through a reading passage on his own, I told him, "You don't have to do this now. Take a break." But he wanted to finish and read absolutely every word he could. My heart broke as he sobbed his way through sounding out letters. Finally, after three and a half hours, he couldn't do it anymore.

I am an educator of special people. While I understand that these assessments are not meant to
 truly test my kids (or accurately test anyTHING), they are still required to finish the test as someone believes thats how you figure out how I'm doing as a teacher and how my kids compare to where they "should be."

Yesterday started a new chapter in my educational career. I don't know if I can passively participate in education any longer. After bringing my kid to tears because politicians want to measure his worth on his ability to sit in his seat for too long reading FIVE 1-4 page stories and answering completely pointless questions, it has occurred to me that my anger needs to be pointed at what matters. I encourage all of you affected by over testing to complain to your co-workers, yes, but take t a step further and write a letter to your department of education. Parents in Texas are now refusing to let their kids take high-stakes tests and a group of teachers in Washington state refused to give it. We aren't crazy and other parts of the country see how damaging these things are. Your letters may not be read, you may not be heard, but what if you were?

My teaching neighbor, a third grade teacher told her students a wonderful thing at the beginning of the year.
"There is a line that the state believes you should be at. This line is subjective as it attempts to measure how smart you are. But if you look around, we are all not the same height. We all grow a our own pace and that is okay."

These are children and as long as they are in my care, they are going to remain that way.

Friends Can Be Animals and Friends Can Be Squeaky

If you have the privilege of having a furry friend, squeaky or not, you understand the bad bad days when you walk in the door and have that friend go crazy to see your face and hear your voice. Immediately, they get cray like your own personal cheerleading squad. "YAAAAAY!!!! YOU'RE HEEEEEERE!!!! I LOVE YOU JUST BECAUSE YOU EXIST!!!!!" That's a lot of wagging, meowing, jumping on you, or in Oatmeal's case, squeaking.

I know it's because he thinks we have food, but when you start feeding that little nugget, he knows your voice, smell, face and gets super excited when he sees, smells or hears you. "WHEEEEK!!" And he prances around his cage, kicking his back legs like a little furry mule, and sometimes he moves around his log house, like he's clearing space for you to sit down. When you open the side door, he perches there, sticks out his nose and nuzzles your nose if you get close to him. It literally makes my day.

Paul and I were cleaning out Oatmeal's cage Sunday and, like idiot guinea parents, trusted him to lay on his towel on the floor while Paul fed him spinach. He sat there munching on his snack, drooling green slime then decided to start hopping like a little bunny. We thought this was funny. "Let him," Paul says. "He needs to stretch his legs." He hopped a little passed his towel and I got nervous. "He's fine," Paul said. It didn't take long for Oatmeal to take off underneath the futon, far enough just out of reach. He stood there, a big round lollipop of fuzz, and took turns staring at us and hopping back and forth. This went on for about 15 minutes until finally he waddled back and let me pick him up.

"You're going to be the "fun" dad, aren't you?" I said to Paul.

He just shrugged and smiled.

I swear Oatmeal was grinning with the equivalent of a KoolAid mustache but it was green from all the spinach. And having a spinached-faced guinea smile at you makes your heart swell ten times bigger.

I have a student who has a lot of social issues. He'll get really sad sometimes and repeats, "I got no friends" a lot. He will lay on the floor face down and play "possum." He'll get back up eventually, but very slowly and mopey. I always remind him that Oatmeal is his friend and we talk about how Oatmeal makes us all happier.

"You know when you say good morning to Oatmeal and he comes over and sniffs you?"
"Yeah?"
"That means he likes you talking to him."
"Yeah Oatmeal's cute. I like him."
It's sometimes the only way I can get him not to be a possum anymore.

A 3rd grade teacher down the hall used to come in and talk to Oatmeal in the morning. "How's my little guy?" She would talk to him about everything, from her job to how she was feeling. She said it was the best part of her morning. The night custodian started buying Oatmeal snacks and whenever he heard her wheeling the garbage can into the room, he started squeaking up a storm. Sometimes she would leave carrots for the morning.

It's kind of crazy how many lives Oatmeal has made better. It sounds so silly, but I've had a tough year and I wonder how much worse it would've been if Oatmeal wasn't around to squeak and nuzzle and smile green smiles at me. What if I invented a pet therapy business where I packed up Oatmeal in his carrier and visited schools with more kids with possum tendencies? I would let them pet Oatmeal and tell them that Oatmeal will be their friend forever because his tiny guinea heart is bigger than most and he has room for them all and a stomach that can hold a mountain of veggies. Is that possible? I'd like to think so.

Oatmeal and I could be a pretty good team.

I may or may not have already created a theme song.....




Good Days and Bad Days and Tsunami Tuesdays

I always thought bad days had a formula. Like if you could figure out what made it a bad day and avoid those things, you can always have good days, or at least have better days.

Par example: Weird piece of hair that won't stay behind my ear + cranky 2nd grader who won't stop spinning in a circle during reading + angry parent phone call = bad day. SO: According to the laws of physics, if I make sure I never have weird hair and never answer the phone then I only have one bad thing in my day. And resist the urge to call your days funny alliterations like "Mania Mondays" "Wild Wild Wednesdays" and my favorite, "Tsunami Tuesdays" because they always always always come true.

I think it took the whole school year to figure out that this doesn't work. But it's easy to think applying data to your day will fix it. I've always been given the advice to "keep good data" to "analyze" when it comes to kids' behaviors. If Sammy freaks out during reading everyday, then find out what's going on in reading that makes him freak out. I'm pretty sure I've let that spill over to my life. It doesn't help that I want everything to be perfect and easy all the time.

When I was 19, I was visiting Ypsilanti after I moved home for the summer and we were at Stephanie Says Monday night dance party at the Elbow Room and after dancing to ABBA and David Bowie and things only people who dye their hair black listen to, I remember walking, real sad and 19 year old world-problems-on-the-shoulders kind of walk, with my hands in the pockets of my second hand trench coat, probably black eyed Twiggy makeup to emphasize my sorrow, and my dancing partners started singing "look for the silver lining" real Judy Garland like, but when you're sad you don't want to look for silver. You want to wallow in your Twiggy, Margot Tennanbaum makeup. But maybe I get it now.

I've been trying this thing that my dad is helping me with. It's called "trying to enjoy my time that I have left without wanting to be somewhere else every minute" and it's working well this week. I'm pretty sure I had a terrible day today but I'm kind of okay. I think this day would've had me in tears by 8:45 a.m. but today I just rocked it and listened to the kids funny story and I realized something.

For every freakout, there is another kid that's doing something great. For every unkind word, there is a really funny story that makes me laugh. For every behavior intervention that's going south, there's another kid that hugs me and tells me they miss me when they go home. This is true and it is true every day.

Like the story problems we were making today:
6 cats were jumping over the moon.
4 cats left to get married.
How many cats now?

"What's that?"
"A monster who eats cats. You can buy it for $1100."

"Here Ms. Ronau. I made you a tiny man out of paper."
*Insert a tiny soggy-glued pile of paper with a tiny square smiling head and my Grinch heart melting*

I thought the formula for getting through this next piece of life was to not care and survive and keep my head down. But maybe it's to try and block out the knuckle heads and write down the ridiculously crazy-cute stuff. And eat more Snickers bars and give Oatmeal more carrots because he tries to eat the middle first. Silly baby.

Math and Numbers and Calendars and Curtains

My first official day at my dad's was today. I woke up to apple cinnamon pancakes and a pot of coffee and the ability to hear bird calls. The sun filtered through tan canvas curtains in the second story bedroom my brother once slept in, and still had traces of his fingerprints, mainly on the back of the door which still holds a Native American poster with the cautionary tale of the Cree tribe. "Money cannot be eaten." Well, maybe it can, but it is probably not very good.

Today is April 2nd. If you ask the teacher me, there are 40 days of school left. If you ask Mr. Yo-Nau, there are 41 days until he packs up his Jeep and manifest destinies to Tahoe City. If you ask Mrs. Yo-Nau, there are 67 days left until I do the same. 2179 miles. 32 hours in current traffic. 6,250 feet above sea level. Everything about my next two months are made up of numbers. And I've always been terrible at math.

We said goodbye to the duplex we have called home for 27 months on Easter Sunday. I packed up the last load around 1 p.m. and left it in there until yesterday morning. After three days of packing, organizing, sorting, processing, I am left with a body and a mind that are beyond exhausted. It's like that whole body tired that not even coffee can fix. I need a few days of nothing.

I believe that I am transitioning well. From someone that is extremely uncomfortable at any sort of change, I've been okay. I was ready to leave our duplex and really okay with some change. But this dance we will be doing for the next two months will be rough. Back at our parents houses, stuffing our day-to-day lives in tiny bedrooms, juggling goodbyes to our families and friends while trying to find time for "us" and living on the other side of the country from each other for 26 days. Therapist says sometimes you have to go back in order to go forward, but going back to dating and living apart is throwing me off.

We had lunch today at Olga's and we met there in separate cars. So many great things happen at Olga's. Sharing a Snackers basket opens our brains. Or maybe it's the almond cream cheese?
"Let's talk about your job. What are the invasives in Tahoe? What will you be conserving?"
And I sat there and watched Paul talk about thistle and pine trees and I smiled and remembered why. I haven't seen him this happy in a very long time.

Oatmeal has his own room with a view overlooking a backyard oak trees and my dad and I made a potato pancake, lima bean, ham square salad dinner. We watched the Indians and ate pretzel chocolate and discussed guinea pig play house building. Spring Break will be over soon and life won't be this easy.  It will be until July that the curtains in our bedroom will be our curtains. I don't know what any of that means, nor could I even begin to try or predict how anything further in my life will feel or how I'll react. Can anyone really do that? I don't know.

Here's what: things are changing and it's good and it's uncomfortable. I will go back to work at hate it sometimes. I will miss Paul. I will want to see my dad when I had a no good very bad day. None of that will change, no matter where I am. I am struggling to understand how to remember that small good things can add up to great feelings. Like how good coffee tastes when you really need it and how good the love of a very grumpy cat can make your day and write down your grandma's potato pancake recipe and take it with you and try not to screw it up. And buy socks with neon yellow toes and heels. They'll make you feel wonderfully nerdy.

I'm working through it. And in the mean time, look at this guy. He makes everything better.

Teacher Me and Writer Me and Chapter 1

While preparing to move back home til June, I stumbled on a box I hadn't opened since undergrad. Pushed in the very back of the closet and moved without being opened for 5 years, I had no idea what was in it. Paul has been reading Thoreau and has suggested we burn our belongings every three months and he is on to something. It's time to purge. The box was filled with an enormous pile of half-used notebooks, folders with scores of loose leaf papers, wrinkled-up typing with even more editing marks in the margins. All proof that I used to be a writer.

I was pretty good. If it wasn't the constant criticism and the crippling reality that I could fail, I think I would still be. But going through that box was rough. I missed those days more than I ever thought I would. It made me feel old and resentful, like the way the neighbor kids make me feel when they're LOUD playing drowns out Pat Sajak (IT'S 7:00 P.M. YOU SHOULD BE IN BED. NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR BIKE TRICKS.)

"Three years after we move to the city, we walk home from school and throw rocks at the Hot N Now. We hold our breath in the grocery store aisle when we pass by the wine. I hate my long hair.

Three years after the 8th grade, I claw my way out of a moving car. I hate the color orange. I can hold my breath for 45 seconds.

Three years later I am in a laundro-mat thinking of violins and wide eyes and how pretty bruises can be. I am waiting for the dryer to end. I want it to be quiet.

Three months later, I kiss my first 25 year old in an empty theater after a Bruce Willis movie. His big hands grab my face and I can think of nothing else for weeks. During the day, I think of how we'll look when we're 65 and what we will name our Doberman Pinchers. We drink fancy beer with dragons on the label and giggle in bed.

Three years later, I write novels about airplanes and he still loves to hold my hand."

I wrote that on my typewriter three months after meeting Paul. It was clear what I was going to do after graduation. But as soon as I was done, I couldn't do it. I wanted stability and a clear-cut career. One that was predictable and solid and where I could plug in without putting myself "out" there like I did with writing. One that wasn't going to be critical of me. Something black and white. Something simple. And now I'm right back where I started. Loving to do something but not knowing how to make that reality. Re-reading through my crappy poetry about how I hate the mall and social situations made me more excited about blogging than I have been about teaching since that fantasy of what teaching "was" died with my first, second and third year.

I have tried so hard to forget how writing made me feel as I've told myself it cannot be done how I want it to be. My 'zine writing days were fantastic, wading through old encyclopedias in the library for days, photocopying weird pictures of insects and pasting them on the backdrop of Tokyo. But, as Chapter 1 begins, and we pack up this dusty old mayo jar with out entire lives drooping awkwardly out of boxes and storage bins and laundry baskets, my writing starts again with this. This blog is going to suck sometimes. It's okay if you think that. But it's also going to be fantastic most of the time. And doing what you want to do first starts with giving yourself permission.

(the back of my first 'zine.)
 
I want this to be my life. I am allowed to make this my life. I want to maybe be unstable and uneasy and worried about money but do something that I'm good at, that makes me feel like getting out of my pajamas was not done in vain. I don't want everything to be all right. I want everything to be really great.

                          ('Zine #2, sold it for 2 Canadian things or 2 American things)

                                (short story on typewriter "Basketball in Prom Dresses")

"Now I have been going to the fire escape to spy on the dentist office across the alley.
And when loneliness starts driving my thoughts
I sometimes start shaking the same way.
I think maybe he would make my insides not so hollow.
Or maybe I mistakenly loved him in between moment of
naivety and
sugar highs.

But it was extraordinary how well I could see into patients' mouths."
                                                             (prose poem in Chicago)

Watches

Grams shoves her tongue in her cheek and stares at my wrist.
"I can't wear 'em," she says.
"They always stop at two o'clock."

She shows me a tired wicker basket underneath her twin bed.
It is a field of weakened nickel
Bawdy gold
Quiet leather bands bound to
Eyeless faces
Hiding their gnarled chins,
Weaved together in one huddled mass
Like a family of sleeping snakes.

I count 16.

As we drive to lunch, my wrist lingers by my ear.
I wait for the ability to slay watches
With my absent-minded pulse.
                                                                          (Portfolio, UT)

Actors and Acting and Eyeballs and Bulldogs

I reached a point in therapy that has been utterly mind-blowing and I can't wait to share it with everyone. Not everyone, just you guys.

1.) I am an introvert. I actually came upon this while reading the book "Quiet." I am an introvert stuck in a brain that doesn't think being an introvert is okay. I am a bitter introvert.

2.) Because I want to be perfect, I have tried to be an extrovert my whole life. And now I'm starting to understand why and how I'm going to give that whole thing up. Plot twist! I'd rather do crosswords and read a book and have a glass of wine with a few friends than go to the bar or a large party or generally interact with strangers or acquaintances. That stuff makes me drink too much, which in turn, turns off any uncomfortable feeling, leading to a good time. But if I have to drink a lot to feel comfortable in those places, maybe I should leave early. And I think I'm getting to the place where that's okay.

Part of my childhood was made up of my mother regularly citing two historical figures: Beethoven and Shakespeare. The white marble statue of Beethoven was carefully perched on the right side of our walnut-colored baby grand piano, his sheet music draped over the front, but never used as my mother had committed all of it to memory. She showed me "Farewell to the Piano" when I was five and I will never forget how to play it. Shakespeare was more of a joke. Mom loved making fun of pretentious "thespians" but truly loved the stage. When she needed us to laugh, she would recite this certain part of "Macbeth" over and over again until my brother and I knew it by heart. It was never serious and she always recited in a very comical, theatrical Laurence Olivier voice:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Ah, her Shakespeare bit was the best. My mother was never without a story, a bit, a joke, and it never failed to draw people in. She was a fantastic story teller, artist, musician, the life of the party, and even made friends for me by starting a club in my neighborhood growing up. It was called the "Good News Club" and she invited ALL of the kids around our house, even the sketchy Faulkner brothers who we all knew did questionable things when Mr. and Mrs. Faulkner were both at work. The Good News Club was when my mom showed us how to make an owl out of clay and while that was baking she showed us this game where we had to become a toilet paper salesman to win. It was magical and the neighbor kids loved her (even the Faulkners). And I grew up wanting to be just like her.

This want to be like my mom turned me into an actor. Buut I don't like attention in big crowds or when strangers are involved and being around a lot of people drains me. I used to sit in my room for days and just read a wagon full of books. That's what made me the happiest. I was social, had friends, was invited to parties and sleepovers which I enjoyed, but didn't need. But being perfect does not involve reading books by yourself unless you're learning something that is making you more perfect. So from junior high on, I decided I was going to make myself an extrovert. I was going to conquer being shy and not liking crowds to doing Shakespeare bits to strangers at parties. I was going to pretend to be happy about trying to be social all the time.

This basically just turned me into a self-loathing anxious baby.

For so long, I thought there was something wrong with me. Why don't I like to always be around people? Why can't I give a presentation to anyone, even people who I know very well? Why do I turn red at every meeting that I have to lead? The agony of feeling like I'm failing because I'm not who I want to be is pretty devastating. Being perfect is exhausting. And seeking perfection means I want to do all of this and I have to be everything, perfectly, all the time.

Let's be honest, okay? Doing Shakespeare bits to strangers at parties sounds great, but the reality of it is all these eyeballs staring at my head. Eyeball staring is thee most draining thing ever. It feels like it literally sucks my energy out of my body with a straw. Which is why I avoid eye contact with strangers because it costs too much. It's too hard. Too many eyeballs. I have a limit and when it's filled, I need four naps. But I wish it filled me up like it filled up my mom and made her happier.

We were driving home from lunch on Saturday and Paul looks out the window at the car next to us.
"You ever look over at the car next to you and see the driver look like this?"
Insert exaggerated frown face.
"No ... I'm usually looking at the road. But what's your point: there are a bunch of bulldogs driving around?"
"No, everyone just looks so unhappy."

I'm totally a bulldog when I drive. And it's not because I'm terribly depressed or a big meanie that purposely frowns at strangers to ruin there days. It's that I'm tired. I've forgotten how to accept myself for who I am right at this very moment, instead of waiting to love myself when I'm worthy of being loved. It's like I'm dangling this perfect carrot in front of my starving little face and won't let myself enjoy it until I deserve it. Until I earn being good enough. And I have no idea when that is or what that means. I have reached the point where perfect costs too much.

So here is what my inner voice is now forcing out.

There are things that are not okay.

Like:
  1. Being a jerk on purpose
  2. Not looking for your guinea pig when it runs away (that just made me sick writing that...)
  3. Rape culture
  4. Daniel Tosh
  5. Windows 8
  6. Toenails
Things that are okay:
  1. Saying something weird at Starbuck's. Example. Lady at Starbuck's hands me my beverage. She says: "A nonfat venti caramel macchiato. Enjoy!" And then I say, "You too!" (Except I'm the only one with a beverage to enjoy.) BUT it's okay to say weird things. People are weirder than you.
  2. Not being the life of the party. That's a lot of work that requires 2-4 naps.
  3. Doing crosswords on Saturday nights. Because words recharge my brain and make me talk better.
  4. Talking to my guinea pig instead of humans. He makes me laugh a lot and gets so excited to see me that he kicks his back legs like a little mule and sticks his tongue out when he wants more parsley.
  5. Loving myself for who I am, not who I'm going to be. Not contingent on how I look, what I do with my life or how many things I can get done on my day off. Loving myself immediately. At this moment. Without conditions. Try it: it's a pretty good idea.

Now you should make your own list. And be okay with turning red in front of people. Stop kicking yourself for saying something stupid and agonizing over the fact that you aren't who you think you should be. The version of yourself today is lovable and capable. Not any size smaller, or with more charisma or witty toasts to recite at the bar. Right now. I'm trying to get to all of these places, someday. Join me.

I hope that your "It's Okay" list is 10 feet tall. And that you feel taller than the bully in your head who says you're not good enough. Shut. That. Dummy. Up.

Wooden Ships and Steel Ships and Best Ships and Friend Ships

A kid got punched in the ear for not sharing his crayons on Thursday. That was my 10:03 a.m. moment. We were coloring possums. It hurts to not share.

The rules of the classroom and playground haven't changed. Once upon a time, you played with friends that didn't want to murder you. Now when you get your feelings hurt, instead of kicking someone or calling them a butthead, you just stand there and take it and feel like you got punched in the gut or it just started raining and you're frozen in it and then walk away and post a lyric to a Tom Waits song and go to bed early. Everything just gets watered down into strange adult emotions that don't ever really get resolved. No wonder we're allowed to drink, because if we didn't, I don't know how people would deal with all this emotion. Maybe some people pray or move rocks around a plate of sand. I just get sad. How do you deal with people hurting your feelings?

I am a notorious non-believer, planner, doomsday prepper of my emotions, unofficial hoarder of scraps of paper that used to mean something but I forgot what that meaning was but I keep that and the crayon to go with it just in case a trip to a flea market in Florida will spark my memory of the scrap and the crayon. I am slightly paranoid of not remembering, or not remembering the good stuff and remembering all the bad crap. If my memories had the ability to be organized, I fantasize about what labels I could come up with. "The First Three Days of Spring Break 2009" "One Out of Seven Dances But Only the Ones Without a Boy Date" "Good Hair Days When It Was Long".
And then you could just leave out all the bad stuff that makes you scared to trust any human again.

Which is why I doomsday prep for the worst. Friendships since high school have all been forged on the scary fact that one day they won't like me anymore. One day, crayons or no crayons, I'm going to be blindsided with a punch in the ear and no more friends. This is a problem.

I see my kids interact everyday. One day, Jessie likes Jalen and they play Uno together at indoor recess. They laugh and tell jokes and high five and walk to the bus together. Next day, Jessie plays with Alexis instead of Jalen because Alexis has two new colored pens to share at free art time, so Jalen gets so hurt that he writes on the dry erase board, "I HAET JESSIE!" and cries on the walk to the bus while Jessie and Alexis giggle and laugh and tell jokes and high five. And here we are as adults, perceiving lost phone calls to be inconsideration, cryptic voicemail messages as a sign of a wavering friendship, while photo posts on Instagram with a group of your "so-called friends" gives you an empty gut feeling when you're home by yourself on a Friday night. We all feel like "I HAET JESSIE" but we just react passively because that's the grown up thing to do. What a weird concept. The grown up thing to do is nothing?

No, it's pretending that it doesn't hurt us. We have come into these adult-sized bodies with the ability to erase all negative emotion and our brains deflect mean people's words and actions. I think that's how we're supposed to act. Like we're above it. But I think the alternative is to just not let anything affect you; kind of like a real-life robot with the ability to drink soda and tell lies.

But the reality is that it does hurt. It still hurts to feel left out. It still hurts to know someone doesn't want to hang out with you anymore. It still hurts when someone is insensitive to you when you need someone to care. All of that is how humans relate to each other. And pretending that all of that is just for kids is kind of ridiculous. It just cycles into a big mess of misunderstanding and weird passive aggressive Facebook updates.

Let's just be honest. Let's just talk about how we feel, like when our teachers made us "talk about it" after I kicked my "crush" in the junk in 2nd grade. Let's talk about how his actions made me feel and why I reacted how I did. It always made me feel better. Let's try. I'm trying. I know. It's uncomfortable. Fortunately, I have realized, after announcing our move, that I have made some really amazing friendships.

I have a league of females to read books with, laugh with, cry with, puzzle with, every single week. I have a club to eat/make supper with in the middle of the week that always make Tuesdays better than most days, providing beers and fried pickles when the week has wore me down. I have a cousin that is more like a sister. I have an ordained minister friend that is more like a brother. I have a best friend that sends me tiny packages of toothpaste and a bootcamp therapist buddy that always wants to feed me and make me laugh. I have a grad school yoga friend who is an hour north but never feels less than 15 minutes away. I have a mountain family waiting to help us transition into a brand new chapter. And I have a husfriend, whose silliness, kindness and unconditional love has never ever failed.

I am beyond lucky. I have an incredibly full life of amazing people who I have been hurt by, who I have hurt, but have never and will never punch me in the ear.

And I'm fairly certain that not a lot of people can say that.

Let's not be safe anymore. Let's just love all the good ones with every bean we have and take lots of pictures and make lots of jokes and trust that we are going to hurt each other but trust that we also love each other. We're all just doing the best we can. And doing the best we can is good enough.

Figuring It Out and Going to Australia

I'm fairly short-sighted, actually and figuratively, which needs to be prefaced before I let this thought even be written down. I loved teaching this week. Two days in a row. I know.

On Friday, I had a rough day. I went out with some teachers in my hallway and after shop talk dwindled, I let it all out.
"Teaching isn't fun anymore."
Surrounded by veteran teachers nearing retirement, they all sighed in agreement.
We started sharing stories about all the dynamic lessons about foreign countries we had once taught and one came up about Australia.
Me: "I did that in student teaching!"
Them: "I was a student teacher in the 80s..."

But the sentiment was the same. Too much to do. Too many things to squeeze in. We just don't have time.

I drove past an auto mechanic service station over the weekend that resonated with me. "The easiest way to learn something is to like it first." I  am having one of the toughest years of my existence and the toughest class I've ever had, which has turned teaching into this abysmal task that sometimes I want to sleep right through. But lets just pretend for a second that I am a student teacher. I am full of ideas, secretly judge other teachers that have lost their "sparkle" and generally think I know better because I am brimming with passion and energy and ready to take on the universe. I remember using my days off to agonize over amazing lessons just for one day, scouring the web for games, hands on activities, recipes to try in social studies, science experiments, all from my reality. I loved every second. But I was bringing myself to the kids and showing all of these subjects through my eyes. And it was more rewarding than anything I had ever done.

Now, I didn't have to worry about curriculum, grades, IEPs, behavior (mild compared to my kids), meetings, parents, or data. I basically got to boil down everything  that is fantastic about teaching and do that for 4 months. I know that's not the reality. But what I do remember is loving what I did. And there's a way to at least get some of that back til June. I hope.

On Monday, I told my kids we are going to Australia. Of course they asked if we are really going and I had to tell them we are pretending. BUT we have had so much fun and it's only Tuesday. They are extremely interested and hungry for more information, none of which I have seen from some of them. Tomorrow we are finishing up our passports, receive our boarding passes and Thursday we are flying in to do a food crawl around each Australian territory in the science lab. I've invited my brother to come play his digeridoo and we will make possum masks and read "Possum Magic" and color flags and have a really fun time. Because that's what you're supposed to do when you're in elementary school and that's what I'm going to do.

When you let others define who and what you are, you tend to get rolled into their expectation for you. This can be a good thing if they just expect you to be kind and a good person. But I am now refusing to be told how to teach, what to teach, where to teach and what kind of teacher I am. You know what my strengths are? Being silly, laughing at silly, making kids laugh when they don't want to, making up stories to help kids get how to subtract, making up stories for sight word practice, really just making up stories. And instead of being a Russian work camp director (which is appropriate sometimes), maybe it's okay to rock the silly as much as I can. Because that's who I am. I chose elementary education because I wanted to share my knowledge of SpongeBob plotlines and dance to songs about chipmunks. Where in the world have I been? Getting wrapped up in what I "should" be doing because the government doesn't get it.

Let's just forget about data binders. Ok? Short of actually using data in a meaningful way (every 5 weeks), I'm done with that word. Don't say data. Don't even think the word. Because here's the thing: I'd much rather do what I love and how I think I should be teaching than be miserable trying to do it their way. And if I get to a point where they make me, I think it will be time to exit to the left.

It's interesting: once we decided to pack up all of our stuff and move across the country, all the small details of my life are suddenly full of possibility and change I was too scared of trying. I guess if I've already dove in, let's just change it all.

This would be a lovely summer to shave my head and learn how to tap dance.

Tantrumming Kids and Sinking Ships

I have taught special education kids for three years now and strangely, I personally don't identify as a teacher. I know I teach a specific audience and previously did not have general education teacher responsibilities (now I do) but most days its pretty terrible to teach.

Last night, I was messaging with a group of teacher friends and the topic came up again: to teach or do anything else. We dreamt of taking over a salon and working at jobs that don't require pre-and-post-test data, progress reports and grade cards, 7 individualized behavior plans and rarely, if ever, feeling good enough or respected.

Salon work has its negative moments too, I'm sure. And it's hard to understand the plight of a teacher unless you are actually one or live with one. There are dozens of articles, books, movies, LAWS written about everyone's opinions on education but I don't understand why teachers don't get to speak. Why can't we tell everyone what it's like?

Where I have worked, low-income schools, kids come in needing everything: clothes, shoes, food, sleep, medical attention, just plain old attention, a hug, to have fun, a chance to play with other kids, to be kids. When none of these needs are met, there is little education that can get done. On top of all that, my kids have disabilities, meaning so many things, but mostly that they can't tell you what's wrong because they don't know, they have the energy of the sun and no clue how to stay in one area, they're frustrated because they're sick of school being hard, they're frustrated because there's a sound in the room that is driving them insane, it's too cold, it's too hot, it's too bright, because they don't know how to make friends......I could make a list to the moon. Throw in the fact that I have way too many kids to give all of these things to, followed by double the paperwork (IEPs, progress reports for their IEP goals, behavior charts filled out each night, ETR reports, extra individualized homework), 30 minutes of "planning," statewide assessments that send my kids into angry tailspins, and it's just me to figure out how all this stuff is supposed to fit into place.

So it's hard. Duh. And when things don't go right (85% of the time) it's downright torture to teach. While starting a lesson on Black History Month, one of my 3rd graders decided to play drums on his desk. When I asked him to stop, someone laughed at him. He started yelling at the laugher, and the laugher yelled back. Another 3rd grader started flailing his arms because loud noises really bother him and he started shouting for them to stop shouting. Another 2nd grader got involved, flipped his chair and left the room. Another 3rd grader started spinning around until he got so dizzy that he bumped into my only 4th grade boy, who cocked his arm back ready to punch him. All. By. Myself.
I quietly whisper to each student a way to calm down, a direction (go to the quiet area) or (take a break next door) but when they are at a 10, everything is a refusal. And there is nothing I can do besides asking my principals to remove 5 kids from my class. On great weeks, this only happens once. In the midst of terrible weeks, this can happen multiple times a day. It all depends on sleep and food and meds and if there is a giant full moon outside.

But most teachers see success, which is downright addicting. When something does go right, when you're able to teach and see 12 amazed faces when you show them how the planets orbit around the sun, and get to dance to the Planets Song, you realize how lucky you are to be able to dance to the Planets Song for a living. This is what you do, and it's working! You're a rock star! They aren't throwing chairs at each other and everyone is having fun! And learning! You will be lauded for your post-test success! Cue the trumpets and ticker tape!

 Yes. It's rewarding. But the sighs of pity to outsiders that ask me what I do for a living just don't make it worth it. And forgive me if I sound like I'm not grateful for a job, but it's not worth the constant high blood pressure-inducing stress. Not for one moment every other week of actually getting to teach versus being ringside for the next fight between elementary aged boys.

It's not about education. Where I work, and where I have worked, it's simply a social issue. We have so many more social issues that warrant immediate attention that we don't have the resources for, and yet education is supposed to be the most important thing, beyond basic needs. It's like force-feeding someone soda when they haven't drank a glass of water in 3 days.  They need more and we can't give them what they need. We are forced into this model of slamming too much information into their tiny, malnourished brains and we're shocked and horrified that all that comes out is anger and frustration because they never, ever get what they need. And neither do I.

I need to feel like I'm doing something that I love. Everyone I talk to always cautions me when I talk about leaving education by saying, "You don't know how much of an effect you have on these kids." Sure. But you know what else is torture besides just attempting to keep the peace? Wanting to teach, so very badly, to students that are bursting with potential, but having that taken away because there just isn't enough. There isn't enough of me, there aren't enough hours, others, curriculum, snacks, naps, fun, to make any of it make any sort of sense. And although I know I will miss the stories and their faces and their dances and the way they look at me real funny when I act just as silly as them, it's better to walk away and hope someone can do better someday instead of watching this sinking ship get deeper and deeper into territory where education no longer becomes anything I witnessed, grew up in or was changed at all by. We are expecting kids to sit in their seats and be quiet not because we are terrible teachers, but because that's how we are asked to teach. That's how we get through the mountain of curriculum and Common Core and that's how we don't go crazy. But there's little room anymore to dance and sing and act silly. Not when you're expected to follow the curriculum map.

So, it logically doesn't make sense. All that's left is this bleeding heart for these kids that are so hard to teach but are so great in a ton of ways. And in what may be my last three months to ever teach, I've decided to try three things:

1.) I am going to be silly and dance and laugh and hug my kids. Always. Even when I don't want to or don't feel like it. I'm going to laugh when they say funny things even if they didn't raise their hand first.

2.) I am going to put their needs first, even if it means we draw pictures of turtles and lawn mowers during reading instead of read because some of us are sad, even if it means taking two snack breaks when we worked really hard that day, even if it means we don't get to writing because we all need to laugh and watch a funny show, even if it means I have nothing to show my TBT (teacher-based teams) or my data coach. We were busy being humans, not data robots.

3.) I am going to remember that they are children, even when they act rude, disrespectful, ungrateful, and spoiled. I am going to remember that they need to be reminded that they are kids, too, and that school should be fun, not sad. And if we're not having fun, it's my fault too. School shouldn't send you into a frustrating tantrum when you're in 1st grade. For anyone.

I don't know what I'll do this fall. I may go take another crack at it or I may go work in a coffee shop. But anyone who is a teacher or who has taught before knows that it's possible that there's nothing like those great teaching moments when your kids' eyes light up with "getting something." I'll miss that and the hugs and the stories more than anything. But maybe I'm not a teacher. Maybe I just thought I could change education instead. Or maybe I'm just a guinea pig-loving blogger who had to teach in order to find out what she wanted to do. Either way, I'm going to do something I love. I just don't know what it is that I love yet.

Here's to trying......

Change and Phantom Limbs

I was listening to a story on NPR about a veteran who was injured in Iraq. He no longer has feet and was talking about the pain.

"I still have phantom feeling in my feet and every feeling feels like they're being crushed all over again."

Does the healing process included all sorts of feelings, not just crushing ones, but others like feeling sand and grass and heating up cold toes and fuzzy socks? I wanted him to answer these questions but NPR just changed the subject to the fiscal cliff.

But it stuck with me. And like everything that sticks, I apply it to my stickiness. Can phantom feeling happen everywhere? Like in your brain when you miss something? Is that why my stomach hurt real bad when I told my dad I was leaving?

In the past week, my life has changed drastically. I thought I knew what was going to happen, well, loosely, for the next year. We will find a house in the summer, I will move up to resource room teacher next year, filling a retirement spot, and Paul will find a conservation job with his brand new degree. We would cook together, grocery shop, ride our bikes around Toledo, youknow, just be married and awesome.

And while most of that will actually happen, it's not going to happen in Toledo.

We're moving to Tahoe in June.

I know. Say whaaaat?

It was a strange Sunday night last week filled with some heavy talk. It started with a casual conversation over a leisurely house search on our iPad that ended with a different zip code search. And like every big decision that I've ever truly, finally made, it felt absolutely right. We don't have a mortgage. We don't have children. We have amazing friends out there that have volunteered to help us find a place. There are jobs. There are mountains. There is a lake and a library and people are nice to others on bikes. I made a list in my head and came up with nothing but reasons why instead of instantly thinking about what will go wrong.

Well, sort of.

It's only been a week and I've filled up 7 pages in my journal with questions, to-do lists, things to sell, California and Nevada teaching license check lists, services to find (I will need guinea pig pellets!). I'm looking at apartments that I know won't be available when we get there, Google mapping out the ETA between cities, estimating 40 different routes and their accompanying gas mileage, averages of gas prices, and whenever I put something away, a dish, an article of clothing, I think, "Should I take this or get rid of it?"

I know what I'm doing. I am avoiding all the hard stuff.

When I told my dad, he looked shocked. Then he got really quiet. I just kept saying, "I don't want you to be sad. I don't want to make you sad." And he just replied, "Of course I'm sad." We had dinner with Paul's family for his birthday and when we told his younger niece, 5 1/2, she didn't say anything. Just stared at us with her mouth opened. Her 8 year old sister had to explain to her where California was, and then just filled the empty air with a lot of facts, like the size in comparison to other states, the climate. It was hard. This is why people don't leave. It's hard to leave those faces.

I have been notoriously bad at any sort of change. Even the weather affects me too much. Good change, bad change: it doesn't matter. It's annoying. It feels like wearing wet socks for weeks.

I had a really great therapy session about it. My therapist said, "You're sucking all the fun out of it with all your planning" which, to be fair, was right after I told her about my almost-made travel binder. She told me to not miss this opportunity to say goodbye.

I know. But goodbye sucks. It has always sucked. I have always dreaded the word, the meaning, the whole process with which to say goodbye. You say goodbye to things that may never come back or that you'll never see. There is so much unknown after goodbye. You release your control over that and the rest is unsettled. It's terrible.

But what's the alternative? Not going? Not an option anymore. I feel like I've already moved and we're just visiting Toledo for a few months. We are on assignment to love the crap out of this city and its people before we go. And I'm trying really hard to think that way instead of thinking about how I want it to be June tomorrow.

So. Let us make a list of pizzas and hotdogs and activities and coffee dates and lunches and shopping in a final Toledo crawl; otherwise, I'm going to kick myself for not. And like what I think phantom feeling may be when applied to my brain, it is probably going to be sad when I really want a Rudy's hotdog on a sunday night or matzoh ball soup from Barry's when i'm not feeling good. I'm going to want to go to dinner with my dad when I had a really bad day at work or go to Bretz when I need to dig out the feeling of blue. But maybe instead I can think about how happy I was when I got to do those things and find something new.  And there will be so much Paul. Full time. I can't wait to get sick of him again.

No goodbyes, just support, congratulations, questions, happy things. I can't handle goodbyes. Let's just say I will smile when I feel you in my phantom memories. All the good things. And then come visit and we can go dancing in the mountains.


Motorin' and Panickin'

This morning, I decided to do something I don't normally do: relax in my classroom. After settling Oatmeal into his classroom cage with a handful of spinach and his wooden toy ball, I decided to look through pictures from spring break last year. And what I found was a very near-perfect memory of less anxiety and way more fun.

We were driving down the Golden Gate Bridge, with all of these window views i had never seen: green rolling hills, misty ocean views, drinking hand-poured coffee from this place that smelled like coffee heaven, Sunday morning, windows rolled down, and Eve starts playing....
"Sister Christian
Oh the time has come
And you know that you're the only one 
to say
Ok."
And I can feel us all grinning, we are all mumbling the opening verse lyrics, trying to breathe normal while seeing whats in front of us, drinking coffee, smelling the perfect misty air.
Alex points to a green rolling hill.
"They used that scenery for Windows 95 background."
I immediately text my dad. Epic.
"Where you going
What you looking for
You know those boys

Don't want to play no more with you
It's true."
And here it comes. The four of us, sing through our grins.
"You're MOTORIN! What's your price for flight? And FINDING Mr. Right?!"
Eve turns to us from the passenger seat.
"Cuz we're motorin'!"

We drive through wine country and it is nothing but winding roads that lead to more winding roads, old pick up trucks, miles of grape vines and wavy grass fields that never seem to end. You never want them to end and they listen to you. And we stop at a roadside wine shop and buy a local bottle and some sea salt chocolate and drive to the ocean and hike through grasses and find this view from a boulder that's laying on its side and we have a picnic and stare at the water and breathe in all the air and Alex and Paul go and climb on every hill they can and Paul disappears behind a huge cliff and I think he's dead and after way too many minutes he comes back grinning with the camera and I breathe in all the air. I stare at all the water. I don't move, I don't want to leave, I wouldn't have left if I could've stayed.

I had another half-panic attack at the mall Saturday. I felt like some sort of addict that relapsed. There were so many faces to avoid, too many people to feel safe, not enough control of the paths to walk around them.  I put the passenger seat of the Jeep all the way back as Paul drove home and closed my eyes. The sun was too bright and my stomach hurt. Then he turned on a song about not bein' around and how he misses his person. And I cried like I always do with songs about not bein' around and how he misses his person. And I got mad.

Not like the mad that makes you punch people in the butt. The mad that makes you change things. I am thankful for that mad. It makes you move on and do things that scare you.

I am over crying at everything: the shirt at Old Navy that says "Everything Will Be Awesome," the radio songs about leaving and me feeling like I'm already divorced, the way I have to stuff myself into a fake happy elementary teacher every single day when I just want to be sad and angry and sleep in the big puffy chair, and the way that our life is poured into 13 hours a weekend, where we miss all of the things marriages/relationships need, where I have to force myself into the mall because when will we be able to go to the mall again??

It's not that it's time for a change: the change has already happened. It's time to move on and settle into a life of mountains and coffee and real good air. Lets fight over what to watch after dinner. Lets talk about baseball and funny faces. Let me try to make you a vegetarian. Lets go, dude.

We're motorin' again. June 2013.


Growing Up or Down and Sometimes Sideways

Being young rules, except you don't know it does until you're old. I always say the reason why my brain doesn't work correctly is that I consciously know that things aren't black and white but I wish super hard for it to always be that simple. Especially this one: you're young and then you're old and you're supposed to have it figured out. Because if young people had it figured out, there wouldn't be any Kesha songs.

I am at the end of my twenties. That sounds scary and surreal and kind of not okay. It's not that I'm some sort of Peter Pan club girl that can't stop wearing minis and stumbling around in stilettos.
I think the weird part is that you get to an age that was supposed to be some sort of milestone. And it ends up just being another birthday.
Here is what my 19 year old brain thought about age:
23: climbing the corporate ladder, wearing fashionable pencil skirts and wedges driving to the office in a brand new vehicle
25: officially allowed to buy Ann Taylor clothes, rich enough to afford it
27: married, one and done kid, rich, stepped my game up to Banana Republic
31: dead

Reality:
23: still in undergrad being paid student worker wages, splitting a studio attic apartment with my boyfriend. Totally broke, driving my dads old car, shopping at Forever 21 and Target
25: finishing up my masters, still driving my dads old car, still broke, shopping at Forever 21 and Target
27: married, one year of teaching under my belt, driving a new to me 10-year old Ford Focus, still not shopping at Ann Taylor, still broke and shopping at target, feel old at forever 21 (maybe its the name?)
And I plan on living past 31. Please?

None of my wild and crazy ideals about my life came true exactly how I planned. I somehow thought it would all just work out after college and I'd be a grown up with a 401k and a wine cellar.

That didn't happen. And I'm glad. Because grown ups, how I always envisioned them, are lame.
They don't think anything is funny. They have heartburn. They don't dance unless they're drinking and even then it's more of a shaking twitching movement. They yell a lot and get tired easily. They hate loud music and are always frowning. They don't have any good friends. And they never buy new clothes.

These are all unfair stereotypes, partly supplied by sitcom families and young adult fiction. But either way, I don't think the point is to have it all figured out or get a wine cellar. If you think someone has it all figured out, they are either a wise old sage about some things or they are liars. We are all lost and scared about it. That's the truth. But I think I get so into trying to be a grownup that it actually gives me heartburn. Do we really have to lose our silly while we're trying to keep it together? Or are we just trying to flex our frown lines because its easier to complain than see what is all of the good?

I read something on Pinterest this weekend, the latter-20-something's version of clubbing, that needs to be shared and discussed. It was longer than this, but this part was the best.

"There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either."

I have had a hell of a few months and have done nothing but wish I was somewhere else. I've wished I was younger, with less responsibilities and bills, so I could just quit my job and work at Target. But I think, in these times, it's best to just take a breath and sing a song in a squirrel voice. No really. Get silly. Use your wise old brain to pay your bills on time, but give your adult self some slack. Tell yourself that its okay if you aren't married with kids yet, if you aren't "there" yet, because where is that? Do something dumb and make a mistake. (As long as you don't end up in a Mexican jail and your dad still talks to you, it's not technically a mistake.)

Don't turn your wild side into stories you recount with old friends. Rock some big hair or dress up when you're feeling bad about yourself, even if its Tuesday, especially if its Tuesday. Don't take yourself so seriously. Laugh at fart jokes and try to balance a spoon on your nose. And don't stay at a job you don't love just because you think that's what you're supposed to do as an adult.
Don't tell yourself that its not that easy.
It is.
Cancel your cable bill, stay out of the mall, make your own coffee and live simpler. Then quit your job and become a whatever. Don't forget what it felt like to take chances and get exactly what you wanted.

The best part about being young was that you had permission to make mistakes, but you still do. And finding a balance, between your wild and impulsive beautiful self and your smarter, more experienced self, is the best part about getting older. Otherwise, you'll just turn into a middle-aged woo girl at Club Soda, growing sideways (which is exactly how middle aged woo girls get anywhere when they're drunk).

My best friend Lindsay told me a long time ago, that whatever you do, rock it. If you're a waiter, rock being a waiter. If you're a dentist, rock that dentistry. And I'm coming into this as I work from home til 9 tonight, meaning I'm cutting out cardboard stars to attach to straws so my students can have magic wands to accompany our story tomorrow. Because I'm sick of crying about how hard it is and how I miss how it used to be. Save the crying for something sad. Now is the time to dance and sing and be thankful and wave your magic wand and make up magic words and laugh til you cry happy things.

Here's to trying really hard to do that.

You and I are Great and Wedding Aerosmith Makes People (Me) Cry

I have had to tough out weddings and birthdays and dinner parties solo for one year, two months and 27 days. I have had countless moments where I've cried, blubbered about it being too hard, laid in bed late on a Sunday morning with Paul trying hard to figure out how to make things better, but it always ends in a waiting game. May. Paul will find 1st shift work then and he will be done with school and I will be one month away from a ceasefire also known as a teachers summer. It sounds a million years away, too many weekend nights where normal couples are watching movies and double dating and fighting about where to have dinner.
I just want the blissful boring Wednesday evening grocery trip back. And I wince seeing couples there holding hands in the bread aisle while I'm still trying to reason out why we're still waiting til May to change back into a real couple.

I'm getting edgy, and not in the way that I'm totally pulling off short purple hair. It's in a scary way, like I don't have a lot of (zero) patience for my incredibly emotionally taxing job of guiding the next generation to not want to throw Lincoln logs at each other. Most days, it makes me wish for another life. I feel like I'm playing out the plot line of a really bad made-for-TV movie where the protagonist is chain smoking while driving to her job as a cashier at Menards in her dusty white Taurus and she frowns a lot and listens to country radio and has a really terrible boyfriend and a flip phone. And its hot and she has no A/C and she's constantly rolling down the manual windows. And there is always that scene where she lingers in her white Taurus and stares at the lit-up Menards sign and in that moment you know she just wants to start driving west, or whichever direction feels like freedom to her. I do that all the time but I pretend its because I'm listening to a story on NPR. I'm really just trying figure out how to WANT to go to work. And sometimes I wish I could afford to be a cashier.

I had this burning heart to teach in the inner city since grad school, something I have not given up on quite yet. I am a special education teacher to three 1st graders, three 2nd graders, four 3rd graders and two 4th graders. They are with me all day and have a revolving door of needs that I am finally admitting that I cannot meet on my own, not even on a really good hair day. But I try. Really hard. That takes up the majority of my emotional competence and there's really not much left at the end of the day, let alone end of the week.
This job has tested me in ways that I've never felt possible. I have blamed myself, lost confidence completely, became angry at "the system", which all has the same ending, 12 hungry, tired, angry, sad, lost, confused, lonely, unmotivated faces staring at me every single day.
It doesn't end there.
I come home to an empty house where I sit in our oversized armchair that always feels too big. Sometimes I have soup for dinner and watch TV. Other days I just stare and hope that something will stop this constant sinking feeling that I want another life.

I know. It's pathetic and I'm a whiney baby head. I should be thankful we both have jobs, we are healthy, we aren't starving, blah blah blah. But I'm fairly certain that most people marry/settle down to partly have a date to things like weddings and funerals and birthday dinners with new coworker friends or just to have dinner with another human. Frankly, it starts to get pretty self-loathing and depressing and toxic around here. So when we were invited to another wedding that Paul couldn't attend, I decided to go by myself.

Not completely. I had people to meet before and walk in with so I didn't look like an actual DWF. I tricked myself into thinking I wasn't alone so I could make it to the door.
When I walked in, I immediately checked the seating assignments. And there it was: Ronau, Sarah, party of pathetic 1. My heart sank. I felt widowed.

We walked around the banquet hall decked out in wintry Christmas trees to the tune of oldies love songs, looking around the room at the arriving couples. I was incredibly lucky to be in the company of two single people who didn't need to remind me of what I was missing. We drank coffee and looked at pictures of the couple and took way too early photobooth pictures and finally settled into our table 38.

The standard wedding formula was followed. Announcement of the bridal party. Color-coordinated couples pranced across the dance floor to "Let Me Clear My Throat" and we all stood applauding while the couple of the night trotted in. As they all took their seat on stage at a giant rectangle table, the maid of honor stood up and said something short and very sweet while the intoxicated best man rambled on for thirty minutes about the groom's previous escapades involving setting shoes on fire and being a Subway sandwich artist and writing bad poetry (rhyming breast with west) and vomiting in an orange wig.
Raise a glass.
Prayer.
Food.
Wine and beer.
First dances.
Cake.
Photobooth line bloats.
Wine and beer.
Wine and beer.
Someone singing "Stroke It"
Dancing pictures to Backstreet Boys.
Wine and beer.
And then it happened: a slow dance to Aerosmith.
I hate Aerosmith.
But it was the first time Aerosmith had me tearing up in the bathroom wishing I had someone to slow dance with to that stupid song from that asteroid movie.

It's not that I cannot be without Paul. It's not even that I can't go to a wedding without him. It's that I don't want to and I shouldn't have to.
And we are great.
Like really great.
We are great dancers and we are funny and don't drink too much and always remember to say nice things to each other and love our families. We give thoughtful gifts. We care a lot about each other and others and the planet and animals. We live in a space where we both count and we share everything good and everything bad that happens. And forgive me if I sound like a spoiled princess, but if anyone deserves to slow dance to Aerosmith after eating fried chicken, it's us after this one year two months and 27 days without it, going to jobs we loathe just so we can share a duplex for 13 hours on the weekends.

May.

In 102 days, we will rep the Yonaus again, at your local grocery bread aisle. We will dance to the terrible music they play at Kroger on Wednesday nights and throw non-breakable groceries in the moving grocery cart, like some sort of basketball carnival game where we don't win anything and we never stop laughing at me always missing. And we'll fight over bread, that the healthy stuff never tastes good with pb&j, and splurge on ice cream if we're stressed out over money, and he'll take my keys because I hate driving at night and we'll make cheeseburger pie with fake meat because I don't like eating animals always and doze off to trashy TV and he'll take off my glasses before I fall asleep and we'll wake up together and do it all again. Forever and ever until we are dead.
And right now, I don't want to think about anything else.

Southern Oh Hi Food Crawl and Rural Weirdos

Ever since I was a kid, I've attempted to plan out as much of the unknown as possible. My brain has always consisted of little pockets of time and I still spend a sick amount of energy perfecting the flow of activities that go in those pockets. I was the kid with the clipboard at the zoo planning each animal viewing to the minute. Other kids would ask if I'm working on a project for school and I would turn red with embarrassment. "No....it's....fun," and they'd stare at me for longer than comfortable and back away.

I'm good at planning. It makes me feel comfortable in ambiguity. It gives me the illusion of control. And I've perfected pretending I'm having a sweet time in the middle of it all getting ruined. You know that whole spontaneous idea of "let's just figure it out on the road?" Makes me physically ill. But I'm like oh whatever, yeah sure that sounds great mostly. Except when it comes to food. Food crawls majorly bum me out.

Restaurants are terrifying. I wish I could be that person that walks into a restaurant and doesn't start immediately thinking about what to do. Should I give my first or last name? Are there any Sarah-looking people in the lobby? Where do you stand so you can hear the cackle of your name when it's called? Are these people trying to cut in LINE?! It doesn't ever stop. What's worse? A restaurant out of town without a layout or directional sign to the bathroom or a heads up on the menu or a "people will stare if you wear your jacket with a faux fur collar" sign. IT'S FROM TARGET. Relax.

Insert Winter Hike Weekend. Comfortably sitting on the Saturday end of MLK Day, we've been going to southern Ohio for three years now to stay in a cabin in the woods, get up with the roosters (yes there are roosters) and hike 6.5 miles in the dead of winter. It gets you out of your brain, makes you cough up all that indoor dust and gives you a reason to have way too many stocking cap options. It's quite lovely.

This year, we finished the hike in good time and took glorious nap in our weird country cabin named "Cuddles." Then: ham squares. Predictable beautiful salad accessory. I earned them this year. After many years of driving around the entire Hocking Hills area looking for a good restaurant that wasn't too intimidating and lots of Internet research, we landed on a little gem we shall call PONDEROSA. Yes. It was too good to be true. No rules. Just pay first and here is all the food. And ham squares. They have tiny ham squares at the salad bar. Ham squares became just as exciting as the winter hike itself. And it is okay to look like a hobo who has just hiked then napped on her tired hiking face.

Our 30 minute drive to civilization was excruciating so I started to talk about Oatmeal (duh).
"How do you feel about taxidermy?"
"Sarah....."
"What?? It's not THAT ridiculous."
"No. Look."
It was there, in a tired abandoned parking lot, that Ham Squares, also known as Ponderosa, sat dark and empty.
Ham Squares had died.
"It's.....closed?!"

We drove around the rest of the main road, which mainly consisted of me making up reasons why that one didn't work or I wasn't in the mood for this. I was just terrified and tired of learning another set of ways not to look like a clown in a public place. We settled on Golden Corral.

People stared at my faux fur collar coat and I wanted to yell at them that I got it at Target. I was dressing for ham squares anyway! And they didn't have ham squares. Their salad accessories were sad at best. Squishy cucumbers, lumpy bacon bits, wilting lettuce. Just, gross. They did conveniently house cheese sauce next to every vegetable (nacho cheese, forgive me). It all tasted the same, disappointing and trans-fatty. But I got out alive and I didn't have to figure out where the bathroom was. And by Sunday, I was desperate for actual food not covered in goo.

So I did it. I silenced my brain-scheduling pockets and went to a random restaurant for lunch. It was called Four Reasons and if it wasn't for me desperately needing coffee, I would've chickened out. Also, I needed coffee. The menu was located on the wall which meant you ordered there.

Easy.

Next, Paul ordered an Italian sub sandwich.....wait for it.....
"But can I get that with just meat and cheese?"
Blank stare.
"Like no vegetables or mustard?"
"So you don't want, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, mustard or olives?"
I laughed nervously. This wasn't going well. We have offended her vegetables.
I ordered an almond latte (I wanted soy but I didn't know if I was allowed to apply that word to coffee in this county of Ohio) and a chicken salad croissant. Then she handed us a plastic banana. I looked at the cashier and just stared. Weird. And hilarious.
We sat by three silent elderly old couples munching on salads. They didn't bother looking up as we walked by. The walls were exposed brick and they were playing jazz flute on the radio. An older lady with a ton of volume in her hair came trotting out with two plates.
"Chicken salad....and a sandwich with everything off it. Just like my sons like it!"
She laughed, took the plastic banana and walked away. She didn't even look at my faux fur collar.

While we ate, I looked over to my left and saw the scariest strangest thing. I think some call it a painting: but this! This was...
A Santa holding a baby with two angels peering over each of his shoulders.
I'm serious.
There, in that painting, it occurred to me that this place was weirder than I could ever be. Even if I accidentally walked into the kitchen while trying to find the bathroom, everyone would be staring at the Santa baby angels so they wouldn't even notice. What an incredible thing.

I was relieved to be home. I even smiled at the sight of our duplex. It's tall and white and I call it the "mayo jar" and above all adventure, surprises, good, bad and anxious, my happy place is the moment in the afternoon when Paul is bleaching the crap out of the bathroom and Oatmeal is squeaking for more peppers and I am making sure all of the water bottles in the fridge are facing out. But sometimes you learn when you're starving and need coffee in southern Ohio, there's a place weirder than you that can make you feel okay, too. And the key is to forgive yourself for not knowing where the bathroom is, for not figuring everything out before lunch is over because no one can. No one really knows what in the world we're doing. And maybe that's okay? And if you just got scared of going to new places all the time, no one would ever be able to give you a plastic banana to hold. And that is just sad. 


Grams.

I always meet Grams at Bob Evans for lunch on Saturdays. She always has something for me.

If I'm leaving for my next semester of college, it's 50 dollars in rolled quarters and a marker that you can write your name on your clothes with. "Don't let anyone take your nice white towels!" she says.

If I'm moving to Chicago, she gives me a box: dishes, silverware and cloth napkins for eight dinner guests.
"Grams, I live in a studio apartment. I don't own a table."
"We'll, you never know...." she shrugs.

If I talk about wanting cupcakes at my future wedding, she buys me a cupcake stand.
"I was at Meijer," she shrugs.

If its the fall, Grams has knitted me a scarf, complete with a tag safety pinned on it that reads "Love Grandma." She says, "No one makes any tags that say Grams!"

And if I ever get a new coat that's a different color, she flips over the paper place mat and digs through her purse to find a pen. I trace my hand. There will be mittens in time for the first frost.

We always order the same thing: grilled chicken with baby carrots and mashed potatoes and tons of coffee and we split a piece of coconut cream pie on our birthdays, or just whenever we feel like it. When I'm going through my vegan/veggie phases and order the fruit plate, my Grams just interprets it as me wanting to lose a "couple pounds."

Grams gets older. She stops driving. We stop going to Bobs. I get busy without her. I forget to call.

On a too-cold-for-outdoor-recess Monday afternoon, there is a voicemail from my uncle. I feel like all of my insides have moved out and left an echo-y empty living room. I am a hollow body.

I don't know what to do with my hands. I can't turn my brain off long enough to sleep. So I go to the store and cook all of the food. I want to be able to feed everyone so they don't have to take their sad face anywhere anyone is going to ask them if they are ok. What do you say? I want to make them treats that Grams would make. I want them to remember.

My nephew grabs my hand at the showing.
"Let's go see Grandma."
He closes his eyes at the casket and folds his hands.
"Grandma I hope your new house and life are really great. I'm going to miss you so much. I love you so much. Amen."

I am a hollow body. My insides moved out.

He stands at the casket. He shakes hands with my Grams' friends. "Hi my name is Felix. I found 96 cents today. Want to see my money?" He is eight and I am so in awe of him. It's hard to even look at anyone and he's touching everyone's mitts.

My uncle hands me the keys after the funeral. "I get distracted," he says. I am in charge. I am driving behind the hearse. When did I become that age to become in charge? I am scared and mush and wear my sunglasses because I can't find my normal face.

There are so many questions as I pack up her things. What do I keep for me? What if I ever have a daughter? What will she want? There are so many things that remind me of her and my mom and both of them looking in the mirror to see their painted faces and styled hair. Deborah. I can hear her voice saying my moms name and it makes me feel hollow from my ears to my feet. Echo-y and empty.

It's such a strange feeling to remember good things, things from a person that can't create any more remembers. It's scary because you're not guaranteed to remember again. So you try to sit in that moment for as long as the dishes, laundry, groceries, your job allows you. And then you turn it off because its sad and you want new ones. And then you feel hollow. So I create all of these sad facts. She will never meet my kids. She will never know their names. She will never knit anything for them. My therapist says I can't do this it's torture. But I think maybe if I think about the horrible facts now it won't blindside me while I'm teaching science on a Wednesday afternoon or checking out of the grocery. Maybe if I think about it now it will go away.

But my hands smell like going through her jewelry all day and now her white linens are in my dining room and when I take one of her handbags out with me, one that is turquoise and smells like her sweaters, I find a tiny hearing aid battery at the bottom

and I can't help but hope she brought extra to wherever she is now.

48 Hours Until Pajamas Aren't Acceptable Day Wear

Before I left for therapy, I put on my new fancy coat Paul bought me for Christmas and contemplated wearing one of Grams' felt hats she gave me that she used to wear when she was my age. Of course I chickened  out. I had a weird Grey Gardens flash in my head with my huge cardigan sticking out of the bottom of my flower patterened coat with a wide faux fur collar and my faded black jeans tucked into brown boots TOPPED with a beautiful maroon felt hat with a matching maroon feather and ribbon. Whoa. Paul was too sick with the flu to tell me otherwise, and I didn't want to scare my therapist into committing me.......this is what happens when you attempt to adjust to sea level on your own. I'm having a hard time transitioning from stay-cation to earth.  2 more days. 

This break has been unbelievable. I have had the worst anxiety and the best breakthroughs in years. I've near-panick-attacked thrice, spent a jillion lazy hours with Paul and Oatmeal and learned how to crochet  with my very best friend. And during another therapy appointment, I came to a frightening conclusion: I want to write again. And no I don't want to write copy for a packaging company as coming up with snappy tag lines about bubble wrap sounds suicide-inducing. I don't want to be the next great American fiction writer or pen a tell-all about how to be a good friend to a guinea pig (actually that sounds awesome). But I do want to make writing a part of my life again. (I'm not sure why we broke up in the first place.)

Feeling fulfilled and excited and allowing myself to listen to Rod Stewart, I went to the nursing home to see Grams and tell her about it and give her the two skeins of yarn she requested on Christmas. She was sleeping in her chair and looked very tired. I let her sleep. She had her hands curled up by her stomach and I smiled. I inherited her beautiful long bony fingers that always remind me of my mom. Three generations of Jane middle names, long fingers and bossy women. Grams woke up and smiled to see me there. I showed her the yarn and we talked about dinner. She told me a story about dessert last week. "You have to be bossy sometimes to get what you want," meaning you have to ask for pudding at dinner instead of Jell-O.

In my case, it's giving myself permission to do anything that I want. To do what makes me feel fantastic. Why is that so hard?

I'm going to go back to work on Monday and its going to be hard. But to get up the mountain of paperwork, morning work, IEPs, meltdowns and emotionally draining weeks, I'm going to write all about it and take pictures of Oatmeal and drink too much coffee. And possibly boss myself into doing something that scares me. What about you?