I’ve been busy…

It has been four months since I’ve written. Specifically since I’ve written a blog, but essentially since I’ve written at all. Sure, I’ve done the odd journal entry here or there; I’ve done some editing, but I haven’t written since I was on PEI.

This is not good, guys.

But, to use the same excuse everyone uses to explain away everything they should be doing but don’t: I’ve been busy.

When I came back from PEI, I jumped right back into the school world. It was, as I like to call it, contest month. I assisted with the hosting of the UIL Concert and Sightreading contest (because my bff is the band director, and that’s what you do for bffs). A couple weeks later, we both helped host and run the UIL One Act Play contest (because I love OAP contests and I could help reduce stress for both my bff and the new theatre director). Our final hosting gigs were three track meets where we kept score tallies/organized medals (because bff’s husband is a coach…and we’re friends with all the coaches).

On top of that, we were also helping my best friend’s mom direct the 4th and 5th grade musical (an annual tradition we have been apart of for many years because the fine arts department in our district is a united front from elementary up through high school). This one I do for several reasons. 1) I love theatre 2) I love teaching theatre, especially to little kids 3) Best Friend’s daughter was in the musical 4) Best Friend’s mom thought she didn’t know what she was doing and was desperate for help. (Spoiler alert: she 100% knows what she’s doing, but if we could help ease her mind a little, we were there for it).

On top of all that, it was baseball season. Those of you who know me know that my obsession with baseball is second only to my obsession with books (and maybe also Tudor period England, but we can group that one with books). I am incredibly lucky in that the baseball coach is my friend, and he understands my baseball obsession in a way that maybe nobody besides my brother who is also a baseball coach does. And so, he asked me to do all of the pre-game announcements for home games, and I also wound up being in charge of the official pitch count and music between innings and sometimes the scoreboard. (FYI, doing all of those jobs at once is super hard, but it can be done albeit with a lot of cussing and anxious hair pulling.)

Here’s the other thing about this particular baseball season — my friend is following in my footsteps and leaving the teaching field at the end of this year. And people have been awful to him about it because people apparently can’t stand it when you make choices to take care of yourself instead of others.

So he got blamed for everything. Because he was leaving he suddenly didn’t care about coaching a sport about which he is very passionate. (Totally logical, right?) I wish I could have recorded him on the field to use as proof to all the naysayers that he did in fact care about winning games and that his heart was 100% invested. You don’t jump around in both agony and excitement after every hit and spend hours after a game going over every play in detail with your friend who obsesses about baseball if you’re not there for those kids.

But I digress. What it all boils down to is that on top of my official duties, my other job at baseball games — self assigned — was to protect my friend and be there to support him when not many others would.

Lastly on the friend front, one of my very favorite people made it to state in OAP. Actually, a lot of my very favorite people made it to state in OAP, but this person in particular asked me to come down to be with him as part of his family and team. I couldn’t refuse. I got to hang out with people I get to see maybe once a year, watched brilliant theatrical productions, and was there for my friend and his kids to celebrate the beautiful art they created. (Side note: I don’t normally cry during plays — his made me UGLY cry.)

ALSO, both of my brothers are moving back home. We’ve been house hunting so many times I feel like I’ve seen the inside of every house in our town, and I’ve edited so many resumes and cover letters and provided insight on job interviews and helped set up countless meetings with colleagues that I can hardly see straight. I am excited about this change and glad to help my brothers with anything, but it has been quite a lot.

(Have you found the trend to my busy schedule yet?)

I also have had some very exciting news on the job front. For about a month I did some freelance work with an online curriculum company in an attempt to help get several of their courses officially approved by the Texas State Board of Education. That was immensely time consuming and at times mind numbing, but more than anything, hugely satisfying. It is the perfect use of my experience combined with my need to work from home. I still have a passion for education and good teaching. It is a learned passion, but it is a passion nonetheless. To be able to assist a company who makes exquisite curriculum get that curriculum in the hands of more teachers is one of the more rewarding jobs I could think of.

When that month was up, I began grading essays for state standardized tests. Now, this has not been hugely satisfying; however, it has been hugely enlightening. Reading through hundreds of essays I have been reminded how damn difficult it is to be a teacher. The combination of a flawed test and kids who don’t read (and so can’t write well) and teachers who are so desperate for their kids to pass the test they teach strictly to the test and so cannot teach good writing is painful to see.

So these past four months have been busy, and I haven’t written. Because these past four months have been full of the things I desperately love: Fine arts. Baseball. Educational tools that actually work. Brainstorming ways to improve the education we provide to students. I have spent the last four months reveling in my passions (that just so happen to be housed around high school children). More importantly, I have spent the last four months being there for my people, which is something I will never not do.

I haven’t quite been there for myself though. I have made money — which is a super important thing I needed to do. I have reinforced my friendships and family bonds — another super important thing. But I have not written, and that is problematic.

So, my vow to myself. As soon as I finish grading these essays (and after the older brother from Washington gets done with his visit this weekend), I am taking time again. I might disappear to another state. I could just hole up in my house. But you probably won’t see me for a few weeks. Because I have to get back to writing. I have missed it. I had forgotten what that felt like, but having had it on the forefront so recently and then to lose it again — man, that’s been rough.

I will work on this balancing act — me, my friends, family, money. I will work on not finding excuses. I make no promises because we all know how impossible those kinds of promises are to keep.

But I will make this one: I will continue to work on taking better care of myself. I know that it is a constant struggle, but I have come a long way in this journey already. The fact that there is still such tremendous room for growth and improvement is comforting and terrifying and a challenge I look forward to. I will not feel guilty for coming up short because I know that I am not done growing so, in fact, I can’t come up short. I will continue to love who I am and the journey that I am on. I am so happy to be on it.

(Okay, that’s more than one — but it’s all in the same spirit, so it counts.)

As Lin-Manuel’s Washington Would Say “Pick Up a Pen…”

I am returning from a two week jaunt on Prince Edward Island, Canada. The average temperature this time of year is about 20 degrees Fahrenheit (on warm days) and there was roughly five inches of snow on the ground when I arrived. Most people, both those that I know and those that I met while on PEI, thought I was crazy.

Why are you going up there this time of year? Do you realize how cold it is??

You’re going for TWO weeks by YOURSELF???????

Yes, I generally told people, I’m going to go experience real winter since we don’t have that in Texas. I’m going to see snow.

Partly.

Also, and the part of me that hates being a tourist loathes this, but a bigger reason was going back to the land of Anne of Green Gables. I have been there before in the summer. It’s a different experience in the winter, and I wanted that.

Partly.

And I wanted to spend my birthday traveling and doing just exactly what I wanted to do on my birthday without doing anything that anybody else wanted me to do.

Partly.

But, really, if I’m being honest, I needed to get away from everything I was responsible for so that I could write. Only my very closest friends and family knew this was my ultimate goal. In fact, I didn’t have to tell them, they just knew.

“So…” Mom started after I told her I was making the trip (and we had hashed out the temperature issues). “You’re going to write, right?”

I hesitantly replied in the affirmative.

I don’t like talking about my writing. It makes me feel like a fraud. I started off in life with all of these goals regarding writing. My whole life was, in fact, centered around writing. I wrote constantly throughout elementary junior high, and high school. I was a creative writing major at Texas Tech. And then I had what, at the time, I considered to be a major setback in that I didn’t get into the grad school of my choosing and so therefore, I rationalized, couldn’t pursue those goals anymore.

Which is pretty damned ridiculous, but when you’re 20 you do a lot of pretty damned ridiculous things.

So, I quit. I didn’t mean to; it wasn’t a conscience choice, but I allowed other things in my life to take priority and gradually, I stopped writing altogether. I somehow didn’t kill it, though. It survived in a small part of my brain and nagged at me constantly. I didn’t always hear it, but the whine was always present. I learned to ignore it over time because, well, it’s easier that way. I came up with excuses. All the standards: I’m busy, I’m tired, I’m sad.

And here’s something else I don’t like talking about: I have been incredibly sad.

It started roughly around the time I didn’t get into my grad school of choice and continued through terrible relationships I felt trapped in and career choices I felt forced into making but couldn’t see a way out of.

Then, a year and a half ago, my grandma died.

We’d known for years this day was coming, so it didn’t come as a shock when it happened. Or it shouldn’t have. But it still shocked my system. This woman – who had a litany of faults that sometimes made her unbearable to be around, just so it’s clear I don’t hero worship her – shaped so much of who I have become, and I didn’t even realize it. Until I was writing her eulogy.

This woman taught me independence and spunk and not giving a shit about other people’s opinions of what they think you should be. I learned to love reading and theatre and travel watching her. (She also taught me not to be hateful and bitter and racist, but not because she wasn’t those things, so I don’t want to dwell there.)

And the moment that she left us and I had to write a eulogy for my last living grandparent, it broke me. Or rather, it broke the barrier I had built to drown out the whine that kept nagging at me to write, write, write, write, write.

It didn’t happen overnight because depression (ah, you scary, scary word) doesn’t work that way. But eventually, I clawed my way back to my original life’s goals. Wrote my way out, as it were. (BTW, if you haven’t yet, go listen to Hamilton. You’re welcome.)

I am no longer defined by the arbitrary failure of not being accepted into grad school 11 years ago.

I am no longer defined by the shitty relationships I subjected myself to.

I am no longer defined by a career that I hated.

I defy all of those things and instead proudly announce that over the last two weeks on beautiful PEI, I wrote over 20,000 words (equal to what I’ve done in the last four months at home) and am almost halfway through a novel. My newest goal is to finish a draft by the end of May.

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”

— Ernest Hemingway

I am still not comfortable talking about it (so please don’t ask me unless I bring it up – like, I don’t want to talk about what it’s about yet), but I am taking baby steps.

I am also following the advice of Hemingway: Write hard and clear about what hurts.

That’s my phone background so I’m reminded every day. My lock screen says “Everything that you’re going through is preparing you for what you asked for.” Again, as a reminder of my purpose, my goals.

Maybe that’s a warning for those who may not be prepared for what I will be talking about, what I’ve gone through. Maybe that’s just life. But I don’t really care anymore. I’m done explaining myself to anyone besides myself.

I’m writing.

I’m writing.

I’m writing.

Damn. That feels so good to say.

“Pick up a pen, start writing.”

— Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton

To write or to trophy wife…that is the question.

Recently, I quit my job. I was a teacher.

For the last 10 years, I have impressed upon high school students the importance of using proper grammar and projecting their voices on stage. I have lectured about King Henry VIII and all of his wives and hammered home the finer points of drafting an argumentative paper. I have traveled the state of Texas taking students to debate meets and theatre festivals and choir competitions and marching band contests.

And I loved it. My colleagues were (and are) my best friends. My students were (and are) like my personal children.

But I also hated it. Deep down, I was resentful of all the time I spent writing lesson plans and grading papers and traveling every weekend with children who were not actually my own. I had no time for a personal life, much less time to date so I could find someone to have my own children with. While I adored my students, I did not adore the stress and anxiety that came with them.

When I was young and naive, I wanted to be a writer. “I’ll write books!” I told my friends and family. And I really thought I would. I’ve loved words since I learned to read at three years old, since I wrote my first short story in the first grade. I wrote for and edited every literary magazine at every major academic institution I attended. I minored in Business to go along with my Creative Writing major so I could pursue publishing.

But life is life, and instead I became a teacher. And then one day, prepping for the five different classes I was teaching and making plans for an out of town speech tournament while simultaneously planning a rehearsal schedule for the fall musical, I realized I couldn’t do it anymore.

I was ill, constantly. My blood pressure was sky-high. My hair was falling out. I didn’t sleep. I ate sporadically, and when I did, it was quick and easy junk. Teaching was not healthy for me.

I envy those who are able to pull off the teaching gig. I wish that I was one of them. I pretended like I was, for a long time. And I felt guilty and was angry at myself every time I realized I wasn’t. I felt like I had failed and was continuing to fail every time I woke up and wasn’t happy to be going to school. But I would put my head back down and keep on. What else was I going to do?

Well, life is life, and so I started my own business called Review My Paper. Freelance editing. It takes what I love about teaching (digging deep into someone’s writing to make them better) and takes out what I hate (fighting administration for what I knew was right but didn’t align with the latest fad to make us all “better teachers”).

“To be or not to be: that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.”

— Hamlet, 3.1

What this all boils down to though is now I have time for myself. I can sleep. I eat better. My blood pressure is slowly working its way down. But most importantly, I have time to write. Because, honestly, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s what I was built to do.

And that’s where I’m at. I have been out of the school for one whole semester, and it is incredibly freeing. But also there are times I wish I could wake up somebody’s trophy wife so I don’t have to worry about paying the mortgage or feeding the dogs.

But, as my former student and really good friend told me, I’d be so bored with that.

So I choose to write…because I’d rather suffer the slings and arrows of my own outrageous fortune, even when it’s scary as crap.

I’m going to try to document it — writing, editing, making a living, dating (maybe??). Mostly to keep myself honest, but maybe you’ll get a kick out of it, too. Oh, and I like to read a lot, so I’ll probably talk about that, too. For my first, and very brief, book chat: Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare (if you couldn’t tell).