Tag: Purpose

Friday Night Lights

I’m not sure how many texts like this I will send into the echoless abyss. I do not like it and I am not proud of it.

It’s how I feel.

Some days, I’m happy. So focused on the work I do and the people in my life that I love. Other days, like today, I feel inexplicably sad. So I seek out the places and the spaces that still feel like home.

West Wing. Friday Night Lights. Those are my make-believe homes. I’d live and love there forever if I could.

Granted, Eric Taylor is an unrealistic standard. I’m painfully aware. Texts that you draft in the wee hours of the night and don’t actually intend to send to the person who hurt you are allowed to be ragey and apoplectic and also completely whimsical and nonsensical. And does it really matter if it sent? I’m quite sure that number no longer receives them. Whatever. This has been a weirdly contemplative night. As so many now are.

I had a meeting tonight with the finalists for my scholarship program. I feel energized and encouraged and inspired by them. And all I want to do is gush about them to you. For all four of the previous cohorts, you were there. You were the person I talked to about them. All the funny and happy and inspiring but also the sad and the not always so great things about working with teenagers too.

Then I remember that last year, you were here, literally in my bed, while I virtually interviewed students for the program. When I finished with a standout one afternoon, you laughed at me as I came into my bedroom. You said “You’re so happy. I could tell you loved that kid. Do all interviews last that long??” They don’t. And I did/do love that kid. He was and is incredible and I’m angry only that I met him while you were in my physical presence. I can’t ever not see those two things together. And I hate it. He’s going to Japan this summer, with Stanford, on a scholarship that I helped him get. I think you’d like to know that. Then again, I’m not sure now what you ever really liked. My heart seemed like something you were genuinely attracted to though. There is no end to my love for these kids.

Or you. At least, there wasn’t. I might have loved you forever.

But you fucked everything up. You made everything feel ugly. I don’t even know who you are! How can you be both of those men? I still don’t understand, John. Almost two months into this nightmare.

Mostly, I just want the man I knew to be here – so I have someone to talk to about all these incredible kids this year. I am already in love with them and I’d fight for them, so hard.

You? I would have fought for you too. The you I knew.

Music for the Mood: Friday Night Lights theme song – W.G. Snuffy Walden

The good prevails

It’s during times like these that I wonder what my life is about. I work. I come home. I walk, I watch tv, I listen to music, I cook (sometimes), I play mindless games on my phone, or I read. Occasionally I go out with friends. But mostly, I feel like I just exist.

Tonight I got a text from a former student. One of my favorites. I have so many, really. But this one … he has continued to make me proud from nearly the day I met him. He makes me feel grateful.

Grateful to have an impact on the lives of young people. Their success is my success. I receive so much joy from watching them grow and stretch and become who they want to be. If I can play any infinitesimally small part in that growth, I am immeasurably happy. These are the moments I need to hold on to.

Throughout my career in education, people have told me time and again that it is a thankless job. That you rarely, if ever, get to see the seeds you plant grow & thrive. I have never felt that way. I have always felt loved, appreciated, and valued by my kids. I have so many “smile file” memories and moments. At least monthly, even though I haven’t been working in a school in four years.

There have been tragedies and unspeakable things, and always the routine frustrations and bureaucracy of a school and the American education system. But even in the trenches, you have a family. A cadre of educators who are all fighting together for the collective good. Some better than others. But for me? I always felt like I mattered.

Outside of my work, I can scarcely remember a time, maybe with the exception of my parents, when I have felt that same level of value, of importance, of significance. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all do that for each other, in all contexts?

That’s a world I want to live and love in. Where good always prevails.

Mood music: Times Like These – Foo Fighters (acoustic)

Content

I am content. I want to remember that this happened. That it is possible. How rarely can any of us say that? Are there still things I would change or things that rankle? Sure. I want to feel pretty and be skinnier. Who doesn’t? I want my parents and my brother to never grow old and to always be happy & healthy. I want this man to make me more of a priority. But I have him and I like him and he makes me so happy. For most of my life, I longed for this feeling so I’m going to revel in it as long as I can and try to keep pushing away the niggling thoughts leftover from heartaches past. Mostly though, I want the world to make sense, to be fair and equitable and safe. And I want to be proud to be an American again.

But for tonight, for this moment, I feel content. And that feels really nice.

This is 40

I was excited to turn 30. It was, and still is, to date, my best year. I’m not feeling any particular type of way about turning 40.

I have lots of feelings. Obviously. I am who I am, after all.

Introspection has become part of my daily life. It’s how I take care of myself. I walk 45 minutes each way to and from work every day and, although I listen to podcasts, my brain is constantly churning. Sometimes sparked or provoked by the podcasts but often in spite of or at least parallel to. John laughs at me for my overactive mind but he also helps quiet it. He might be the best part of this milestone.

Lately, for the past several weeks, through the unwelcome remnants of unsettling dreams or human apparitions of heartaches past, I keep thinking about exes. Maybe not so much them, as men or as personalities or even individual qualities, but their impact on my life, for better or, more accurately, for worse …… it’s hard not to imagine my 40 years of life within the context of the things that have shaped me the most. And, with the most brutal truth, shaped the absence of roles I thought I would be playing by this point in my life; roles that seemed and still do, to some extent, innate and inevitable. And yet, roles I may never and likely will never get to try on. Having a child of my own, with John, or g/God forbid, someone in the future, seems unlikely at this age. I’m not in a rush or, I guess, I am not in a place where it is feasible. I live in 385 sq ft. My guy still weirdly lives with roommates. I am not moving to the suburbs. Tiptoeing across the threshold of 40, these are the things I regret and yet, I do realize that it’s silly to regret something you really did not have control over. You’re allowed to regret missing out though, right? I don’t know. This isn’t like a trip to Cabo that I chose not to take.

Relationships, for me, have had the single greatest impact on my four decades as a human, particularly the past two, and I don’t know how to really sit with or accept that reality. Although, even as I type that, I know that isn’t really true. The first one in college, the one after college, the one when I moved here from Pittsburgh … they all still hurt. It isn’t hard for me to recognize or admit but I would guess that, to anyone other than me, even those that know me best, this statement would be utterly unbelievable or, at the very least, induce an eye roll or a casual shrug and a hair flip. To me though, looking at past relationships, and even many friendships, is like being stuck in a hall of mirrors at a county fair. Unpack that as you wish.

So, this is 40. Seems a lot like both 20 and 30 in my head and heart. Wonder if 50 will come with a wider lens. And instructions on how to use it properly.