Wednesday, June 24, 2020

June 2020

Some context (and flowers): 

When I was 16, I moved out of my parents house. My first roommate didn't stay, so I think a nine-weeks into the semester, I moved to a different dorm room and with a different roommate. My senior year of high school, I had my own room (<3) for the whole year. 

When I went to college, I moved in with a girl from high school. A bigger dorm room opened up at semester, so we moved in with another girl we knew from high school to make a triple. I am pretty sure I worked a summer tutoring gig that required me to move in to a different college dorm for 6 weeks. I transferred to the same college campus, and my roommate again left a few weeks in. So, I had a single for a semester, but had to get a roommate at semester. So, my 2nd semester of sophomore year, I moved again. That summer, I moved out, then back to campus for another round of summer tutoring. My junior and senior year, I kept consistent dorm and house-mates-a near miracle. 

Post-college, I moved back home for a few weeks, then off to summer training in Mississippi to be a teacher. Then, an apartment for 2 years, moved back in with the parents for a couple more years, off to OKC for a summer, and then to Tulsa for two different apartments over 3 years, and then back to the parents until I bought my house 1 year and 8 months ago. Since I bought my house, there has been a global pandemic and I've been fired and hired somewhere else. So, even with home ownership- either my job or my housing will change at most every 3 years. 

After spending four months largely trapped in my house, I've started nesting....sort of. The flowers are growing, the tomatoes are happy, and there is exactly one painting hung on the wall. One window has curtains. I've found some solace in cleaning and sorting, organizing and donating. It's something I can control in the face of more and more death in this country's pandemic disaster (over 124,000) and the uncertainty of teaching life in the fall.  

Trusting that this is a space worth investing in, that a space that only me and the dog enjoy is worth investing love, money, and effort in, is a challenge to my deepest fears and insecurities.  It means something to hold the truths equally important- this is a real moment in time that is worth enjoying for the here and now while also acknowledging that life guarantees nothing- no control, no tomorrow, no health or wealth.

Friday, April 24, 2020

April 2020

Waves of anxiety and panic have pursued me for the better part of a month- at times receding into a time and space that might be the purest peace and comfort that anyone can ever had, but always quickly snatched away into cold terror, waking up gasping in the middle of the night, restlessly wandering.

I know I am not alone- but that's almost adding to my own feeling of drowning. Over 40,000 Americans dead. Over 26 million unemployment claims. Borders closed. Journalists expelled from China. Empty grocery shelves. Negative oil prices. 

Without going into the specifics, I need a job. I want to continue working in education, but ideally, I want to move outside of the classroom. It does not look like that is possible. Many school districts are not staffing the phones, and have essentially frozen their hiring process.

I want to continue to make positive steps- carefully hopeful, but also recognizing that 1) this is a terribly rough time, 2) it's not my fault (the employment/the virus), 3) extreme times call for flexibility. I don't know what the future will hold, but I can only manage the hour by hour, minute by minute and remember- this is a wave that will pass too.




June 2020

Some context (and flowers):  When I was 16, I moved out of my parents house. My first roommate didn't stay, so I think a nine-weeks into...