The Mid-life NON-Crisis

Some of life's best lessons come when you least expect it.  That's the case with the lesson that inspired me this week.  I have so many wonderful friends, some close, some that I just see every now and then.  They touch me in ways they can't even imagine.  I know in my heart that God sends them to me just when I need them.  That's the case with the lesson that inspired me this week.

I turn 40 in April.  For many people, the mere thought of hitting 40--a point at which most consider themselves to be "middle aged"--is enough to send them into crisis mode.  Some people won't even divulge their real age after they hit 30.  I must admit that 30 was tough for me. I never imagined myself at 30 and it was a bit difficult to accept.  For a while, I told people that I was turning 25 for the fifth, sixth, seventh time and so on each year when my birthday rolled around.  Forty, however, is a different story entirely.

I know why people dread 40.  Things start to fall apart in your thirties.  You start forgetting things.  You walk into rooms and can't remember why the heck you went in there.  You can't remember everything on your grocery or to-do lists unless you write it down.  Body parts that never gave you a lick of trouble before suddenly begin to trouble you for what seems like no reason at all.  The thought of staying up past 10...on a school night (!)...becomes incredibly crazy.  Some foods that you love start to betray you....turning on you in ways you thought could only happen to your parents and grandparents.

All of these things have been visited upon me in various ways in the last ten years.  And yet, I still wouldn't want to be 25 again.  This might seem crazy but when I look at where I was 15 years ago, I know I wouldn't want to go back.  This reasons why are many:

• When I was 25, I was morbidly obese. 
• I was going to college, working on a second bachelors degree because I couldn't teach in Tennessee without it. 
• My job at the time was at as an assistant manager at a Hallmark store in Tennessee. 
• I still lived at home.
• I was essentially broke most of the time, except on payday.

Today my life is vastly different.  I'm not "skinny," but I'm at a much healthier place.  I'm stronger, healthier, and more powerful than I have ever been in my life. I can do push-ups on my toes...a feat I would never have even imagined at 25.  I ran a 5K two years ago...I couldn't have run 5 meters 15 years ago.  I work out 3 or 4 days a week, for at least an hour.  The idea of working out never crossed my mind in my 20s.  I have my masters degree now (OK, I never finished the second bachelors degree, I'm still one class shy, but who cares now???).  I've been teaching--a job I love 95% of the time--for twelve and half years now.  I feel confident and comfortable in my place at work; I work with people who are amazing educators.  They drive me to a higher place professionally every day.  I will never get rich teaching, but I my financial picture is far better than it was back when I was 25.  All of these are reasons why I embrace 40 rather than fear it.  For me, it is the beginning of the next amazing chapter in my life!

The bottom line is a wondeful quote posted on Facebook by one of those friends I see every now and then:

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have NOT;  remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. 

Thanks, Lisa and Leigh Ann.

How Beavis and Butthead ruined my day

Okay, perhaps that is a bit dramatic.  They didn't ruin my day.  I actually like the show and think it is pretty funny.  If you didn't already know, Beavis and Butthead are back with brand new episodes on MTV.  I remember being a first year teacher, teaching 9th, 10th, and 11th grade when the show first came out.  That was about 15 years ago.  The boys in my classes loved the show.  The lines "heh, heh, she said __________" and "FIRE, FIRE FIRE!" were repeated over and over with glee.

Now the show is back and the fun has returned.  If you've ever spent much time with the average adolescent boy, you know that they are very hormonally driven.  For most of them sex is on their brains, even if they're not sharing it with you.  Beavis and Butthead are very much charicatures of the average teenage boy; after all, humor is best when it is based on a kernel of truth.

And that is how Beavis and Butthead have begun to make my days challenging.  Teenage boys are finding lots of scatological humor in things that really seem like normal everyday stuff to the average adult.  Through some random twist of fate, my students are about 66% boys; teenage boy humor permeates my days.  Yesterday's lesson was an example:  we learned about the rights, responsibilities, and duties of being and American citizen.  Each class I heard snickers of, "heh, heh, she said DUTIES." 

I have a class set of iPads, given to me as a part of a grant.  If you've ever used an iPad, you know that you tap things on the screen to get them to work (it is the equivalent of clicking things with a mouse on a regular computer.)  When demonstrating different apps, I've had to break myself of the habit of telling my students to "tap that" if I want to avoid a chorus of "heh, heh, she said tap that."

 The examples keep on coming:  caucus, Benedict Arnold (who my students insist on calling "Benedick"), privateers, Lake Titicaca and carpetbaggers.  Even simple words like score, ball, bang, nail, pole....they're all potential land mines. 

I've learned that it's not enough to be careful what I say; I have to learn to think like Beavis and Butthead if I want to make it through each day with any sort of classroom management!

Burnt Toast Mom

Twenty twelve has just begun and has been spent mostly being lazy.  I think the best way to begin the year is with a bit of retrospect.  Two thousand and eleven will be known as the year I learned to love myself.  Anyone who has known me for a very long time knows that I have struggled with my weight.  I don't take compliments, personally or professionally, easily.  They make me uncomfortable.  I love my friends, family and co-workers for complementing me; don't misunderstand.  I just feel awkward...like I don't deserve it.  I don't know why; maybe it's that famous "Catholic guilt."

I decided in 2011 to stop being "burnt toast mom," settling for the burnt toast, second best, the leftovers, etc.  Sometimes I was successful.  Sometimes I wasn't.  I made more time for myself, made more effort to do things that I liked to do.  Tried to ignore guilt for not following the crowd and going my own way.  Tried to accept complements and believe that I had earned them.

What did I learn? 
1.  Sometimes, having nothing to do is the greatest luxury in the world.  
2.  A slightly messy house is not the end of the world. 
3.  Papers will get graded, eventually, and lesson plans will get written.  
4.  I'm not the only person I live with who can do laundry or empty and/or load the dishwasher or operate the vacuum.
5.  Yes, I deserve that pedicure and that new outfit and that glass of wine.
6.  The gym will be there tomorrow, and the day after that, too.

Finally, and most importantly, that I am important.  I deserve to be happy just the way I am.  I deserve to be loved and desired for who I am,  not for what anyone else might want me to be.   The really cool thing is that I get to keep working on this in 2012.  The only cruddy thing is that it took me 39 years of my life to figure this out! 

For a long time, my husband has pestered me to start a blog.  "You're a good writer, surely you have something interesting to say."  For a long time, I haven't really felt like I did have anything interesting to say.  In retrospect, that seems like a funny thing for a teacher to say; my bread and butter is having "interesting" things to say......or at least saying boring things in an interesting way!

For the first couple of years that this idea was forming, I was working on my masters degree.  Writing as a leisure activity was out of the question as I churned out a weekly research paper.  Then I finished my degree, but I still had no idea what I could share with the world.  So for another year, I wracked my brain trying to come up with something that I could write about. 

In the end, it all comes back to my job.  My parents used to tell me that you should learn something everyday.  I joke about it at work; when I learn something, I sometimes say, "well, I've learned something, can I go home now?"  I happened to be readng a book over the holiday break in which the author contended that learning is something students are supposed to do all the time, while teachers only do it some of the time.  This statement really struck me. "I try to learn something every single day!" I thought. 

So I decided that could be a place to start my blog.  As my 40th birthday approaches, surely I've learned, and continue to learn, some things that might be interesting or of value to others.  This won't be a deeply philosophical blog.  I have too much going on in my life for that.  Every day, however, things strike me as interesting or I begin to see things in new and different ways.  So that's what I will write about!