i have to do it somewhere.

SQQQQQQQQQQQQUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

ahem.

the end.

you may go about your business now.

but seriously.

SQQQQQQQQQQUUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

i had a plan when i started this post. i promise.

i wonder if, from the outside, it would look like a giant step backward for me to go back to teaching middle school.

i think it’s almost hilarious that i want a job in a charter school teaching 8th grade english so bad.  i ran away from those kids just a few years ago. Now i want to go back…just about the time that all of my past students are old enough to be students of mine now–in college.

sigh. i’m old.

i’ve been thinking about the way a changing life changes your priorities. i used to have ambitions of tenured professorship. i always knew, though, that it wasn’t the position i loved–it was the job. teaching. i really love to teach in whatever venue i get to do it.  i love it.  i’m good at it.  i love making a difference. now my dreams are much different. i want a job that will allow me to do what i love while striving to achieve goals.  i just really don’t care much at all about prestige.  or even money, really. all i want is sufficient for any needs.  i want enough to build the life that i want–and that has nothing whatsoever to do with money.

i used to be a social butterfly. i used to be the one who made things happen, who created the fun, who had lots of friends. now i feel like my group is changing, shrinking–as if the sifting has begun and the notable few who love me no matter who i am dating or what i am doing have risen to the top and the others have sort of…fallen by the wayside.

thank you to those of you who are still around and who act now like you always did.

i would like to say i don’t care.  it’s not that i particularly do…just that i don’t understand it and sheepishly wonder if i did the same as a single person.  i feel like this topic is a post that i’m not sure that i’ll write.  i think a few of you will understand, though. if you do, message me (lindzml…i’m actually thinking of you…but anyone is good).  what do you do when this happens?  i feel like i should feel guilty, like i should chase after those people who seem to have left me behind. but the reality is that i have left a lot of my old life behind in favor of a new one that is certainly different but is absolutely right.  am i being selfish?

i don’t feel like i am.  i don’t feel like i am any different, except that my focus has shifted.

but i feel a little fracture in my heart that the people that i thought would be my friends always, who i thought would be actually happy for me, have not been that way.  how it seems like when i am with the bff, i am invisible to them.  i get at once sad and angry.  and then i think…maybe it’s for a purpose. maybe it’s all part of the natural course of things.  i am moving on.  that must be apparent.

(apparently, most things about how completely and totally nuts in love i am with the bff is communicated via metaphorical  surround sound to those around us…even though we think we’re the only ones who know and sort of try to not be all HEY LOOK AT US WE’RE IN LOOOOOVVVVVEEEE around other people.  except in my house. because that’s my house and oh well.)

but it’s still sad.  and annoying.  and i’m not really sure there’s anything to do. i know that there’s a time and a season for all things, and i am on board with that. i think i am seeing that in action right now.  but it’s still hard to realize that when one season begins, the other ends.  i think i’m in the overlapping period, that time when the chill of winter still remains but spring has pretty much taken hold.

i guess i never really expected to miss winter.

love wraps you up.

do you read mir? i read her every day. i love her for lots of reasons, not the least of which is her love thursday series.  i love love thursdays. because it’s about thursday when a big dose of everyday love is what you need.

i’m going to follow in her footsteps.  we’ll see how it goes.

the 4th wednesday of every month i go to orlando to work in the temple. i normally love it, but it leaves me mentally and physically exhausted.  i wake up very early, drive for three hours total (drop in the bucket, really, to any road trip i normally take, but it’s still somethin’…), work for about five hours, and come home.

those wednesdays are normally crazy to say the least.

yesterday, i texted the bff to tell him i was on my way, and he asked if i’d eaten. no, i said, i was going to wait until i got home. we made lunch plans, and rather than me needing to go to the store and get the stuff (no food in my house, really, other than honey bunches of oats and sugar free-fat free chocolate pudding), he said he’d bring it.

i was thrilled.  the last thing i wanted to do at that moment was go to the grocery store.  couldn’t really deal with the idea of it.

he knew.

i got home shortly before he planned to arrive, and started doing dishes. i knew that i had some piled up, but i had been busy and hating dishes a little, so i procrastinated.  i was frustrated by the whole process, perhaps irrationally. they were my dishes. nobody else was going to wash my pans. i get it.  but i had bowls and cups that could have been loaded when the dishwasher was unloaded.  i felt myself thinking frustrated thoughts, thoughts that fit beautifully with the insanely difficult to wash barbecue chicken pan.  scrubbing away, i kept stewing.

by the time he got there, i’d realized that it was silly.  but i was still a little bit hurt that it wouldn’t occur to anyone to help me out when i help them out in very similar ways a lot.  such is life and it’s not a big deal.

but he could tell and hugged me tight.

he knew.

late last night, we started to watch a movie. i wanted to see it–i really did.  but i was exhausted and all i really wanted to do was sleep, completely safe in his arms.  at first, he asked me if i was paying attention.  and then he just let me sleep, watching the movie essentially alone.  the fact that i could fall asleep–seriously asleep–on the couch with him means something big to me.

he knew.

when the crazy comes calling and the world seems too scary for the weary me to face, love wraps me tight.

happy love thursday, everyone.

quietly mad.

the land of quietly mad.

i might go there.

i hear the weather’s nice.

sweet. heck.

my coworker has been working with a client for AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES.

appointments are 30 minutes long.

excuse me while my head implodes and i shake my fist at the heavens. this is why students think we can read dissertations in one appointment.  but will i say anything?  probably not.

because i am the queen of nonconfrontational.

all hail the queen.

ANYWAYS…

.

.

.

.

yeah, i just pushed the screen up so no one would see what i wrote over my shoulder.  hahahahahanonconfrontational.

i have something to say about confidence.

i needs some.

not that i don’t have it. i do. but i have these random moments where, like eels or something else that’s equally slimy and impossible to hold on to (treasures at the end of the book of mormon maybe? hahahahahamormonjoke), it slips through my fingers and i spend far too much time scrambling to grasp it once more.

now before you’re all “listen. i’m tired of hearing about how you can’t do stuff…it’s BORING and you CAN so stop it,” this confidence of which i speak isn’t really the confidence to start something–it’s the confidence to believe that the decisions i make every day in balancing my life and the people around me are actually good, actually right, without regard to what anybody else thinks.

basically, i’m trying to abandon the guilt.

oh the guilt. you know it. the mighty weight of what you perceive to be other people’s expectations.  the albatross of wanting to make everybody happy.

let’s kill that albatross, shall we?

i think that sometimes and then i realize…but wait. these are the people that i actually WANT to make happy.  i want them to be happy. i want people to know that they are special to me, important and loved, but i also want to be able to choose how i do that rather than feeling like i need to conform to what i’ve done before.

does that make ANY sense at all?

i’m not sure that it does, but i realized over the past few weeks that unless i make decisions consciously and deliberately and then STICK BY THEM, knowing that i am doing all that i can and i am not neglecting anybody purposefully but am simply trying to do what i need to do, what i think is most important right now in my life, then i will be forever bowed down by the weight of the not-good-enoughs.

because, let’s be real.

nobody can do everything.

anybody who says that they can is selling you a bill of goods for a product you’ll never receive.

people can do lots of things well.  some days, they may even get everything on the to-do list done.  but nobody can do everything perfectly. nobody can split themselves in one hundred different pieces and feel whole at the end of the day.

i just don’t believe it.

so i’m choosing which days i’ll split myself into what pieces and for whom.  and those decisions will change based on need and situation and circumstance, with a few staying always.  and i will incorporate all of the things that are important to me.  let me tell you what the number one thing has to be.  the number one piece of my life has got to be Heavenly Father.

i realized last week in all the running around and being crazy that i wasn’t praying like i needed to. i wasn’t studying the scriptures like i should be and often do. i wasn’t making that a priority, at all times and in all things and in all places.

falling down on the job of being a disciple, i was.

no more.  so the first piece of me, like the first tenth of my money, goes to Him.  i feel good about that.  i know that, just like with my money, if i do that there will always be pieces enough to go around.

the next piece is me and the bff. accomplishing all of the things that we want to do.  putting time in for me–exercising, even on a broken toe.  eating right.  doing fun things. spending time together.  it’s important. it’s probably one of the most important things i can figure out how to do every day. i feel like i’m pretty great at the bff part. it’s the balancing me in there that needs some tweaking.

the next piece is school.  i will dedicate time to it.  i will finish this thing.  even if it kills me. and it really might. and when that is done, it will be a job. possibly several jobs.  work.  work. work.

there are a lot of other pieces–family, church, visiting teaching, friends, work, cleaning the house (why? WHY?), etc.–but they’re all just pieces. i guess my point is, as much talking to myself as to anybody else, is that the wholeness as i have defined it thus far perhaps is irrational. nobody can do everything every day.  nobody can get everything done perfectly every day.  and nothing good comes from stewing in the fact that yesterday i did a big bunch of nothing on my dissertation. instead, i did a big bunch of something on other aspects of my life.

so maybe i’ll just listen to the good doctor.

(no, the other one.)

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

and maybe i’ll just realize that when i decide where to go, there’s merit to that. and i have the smarts and sass to choose over and over and over again.  and do it well.

and if i’m choosing the things that really matter, that’s what really matters.

just to climb a thousand walls.

…it seems in keeping with my last post…and i just wanted to post it.

so there.

tandem.

i am exhausted. no idea why. mom’s in town (YAY!), which means my mattress is on the floor, but it’s still my mattress so i really have no earthly idea why i wouldn’t be sleeping well.

and yet i toss and turn and often find myself checking the clock at 4 a.m., thinking that it’s time to wake up and face the day.

when i told mom this, she asked me what i was worried about.

i have no idea.

what have i to be worried about?

it’s nothing in my life. i mean, the perpetual sword of damocles called my dissertation looms ever larger over my head, but i am about ready to tackle that in a big way. i am ready to be finished with it–at least the first draft of all of the chapters–so that i can move on.

i have other things that i would like to do, you know.

when i imagine life post-dissertation, i can’t.

let me say that again.

i can’t imagine my life post-dissertation. to not have it looming over everything that i do–to NOT have a perpetual source of angst and guilt cloud every book i choose to read and every weekend i choose to do nothing (or, let’s be real…every week) remotely related to academia–i just don’t know what that will be like.

knowing me, i’ll quickly replace it with something else. such is life. but i think when i finish i will feel a sense of accomplishment that i have never felt before. and perhaps a bit of a mourning period that school, for me, really is over. i’ll never be a student again. that’s weird. it’s how i’ve defined myself for so long.

i guess i’ll have to get to work redefining myself, eh?

but that’s neither here nor there. my point in writing, other than the fact that i haven’t written in ages and was feeling the bloggery guilt (good grief…what’s with that?), was to take you through my wandering thoughts about stress by proxy.

because boy am i stressed.

and it has nothing to do with me.

(well, that’s not entirely true, but i’ll get to that.)

the bff has had a week, let me tell you what. it really began last week with a government exam on friday. the weekend was good but packed with activity, between valentine’s day (amazing) and church and mom coming into town (they like each other! they really want to impress the other! yay!). religion exam on wednesday, for which he was studying monday and tuesday. rehearsals, as has been the case for what seems like THE ENTIRE MONTH OF FEBRUARY, for his concert coming up t0morrow and saturday (i can’t even express how frickin’ happy i will be when that is over…). an english paper due tomorrow. work meeting tonight. three work appointments. his mom coming into town for the concert (and to see her kid, of course) on friday. the whole my-mom-meets-his-mom thing at the concert. a duet with me in church on sunday. an english exam on monday.

and that doesn’t even cover trying to spend time with me.

i mean, seriously, just writing it all down turns my stomach into knots. i have no idea how he’s been doing it, but he’s been remarkably unstressed. he says it doesn’t help. (of course he’s right.) i don’t think he’s not thinking about it or blowing it off at all–just taking one thing at a time and doing the best he can do.

(you can see how such an example would be incredibly beneficial for someone like me.)

but i feel stressed.

stressed like my week is that busy.

stressed like i have two exams a paper four hundred rehearsals eight million work things to do.

i think that’s what happens when you’re a we, but i’ve never been a we like this before. we have this weird rhythm now. it made itself especially manifest to me when we were washing dishes, as strange as that might seem.  i didn’t even have to say anything to him. he knew exactly where i was going and what i was doing. while i washed the pans, he cleaned the counters. when we needed to be in each other’s areas (he needed something under the sink, i needed to grab something from the stove), we didn’t even speak.  we just knew, and moved aside gracefully and effortlessly to allow the other one access. it was the strangest, coolest, most impressive testament to how well we know each other and how much we have grown to become two parts of one whole.

so now, amid all of this hectic chaos and the disruption of our normal routine, i feel like i am joyfully filling in the gaps for him, trying to make things easier and better. today, he needed to leave for school and hadn’t eaten. so i made him lunch. i knew an hour before that i would need to do that and that he wouldn’t eat if i didn’t. so i did it.  i’ll make him dinner tonight because he won’t have eaten for one hundred hours and i’ll read his paper and i’ll be glad to stay up until two to do it.  and i’ll restrain myself from just doing it for him (hello…so difficult sometimes because when he’s this busy it seems like it would be easy to just really step in to ‘make things easier’) because i know that this is all part of his learning process.

and the weirdest part is that i love doing it.  i’m tired and stressed for him, but i love that i can help.  i love that i know what to do without him telling me. i love that the meager things that i do, even as helpless as i still feel, actually DOES help.

i love that we are two but that we work as one.

nothing says love like lots of saturated fat and crafts.

so…in case you wanted to know…which i KNOW you do, here’s what i’ve been working on for the past few days. it’s valentine’s day related, so if you are bitter and angry about february 14th, tell me and i will send you a hug and a candy heart because this day is about loving everyone that you love, not just a significant other.  or, you could be like someone i talked to yesterday who shall remain nameless who said that she hates basically all demonstrations of affection to which i really don’t know what to say.

the big gift is heaps of home baked cookies–his favorite, chocolate chocolate chip, and then some m&m chocolate chip because i had m&ms and felt like i was ahead of my baking schedule:

(yes…that is two WHOLE gallon ziploc bags of homemade cookies.  have i mentioned that i am AMAZING?)

look…i didn’t even intend this…but it turned into a heart shape. it’s like it’s meant to be.

so, to accompany this, i made a card…myself…with scrapbook stuff…and rubber cement…and i made a little flip ring thing of things i love about him and us.  please ignore the fact that everything is reversed…i used photo booth and i’m too lazy to go and flip the photos.  the poem on the front of the card is i carry your heart by ee cummings. and on the back…an interesting pattern on which to write mushy things.  YAY!

and, then, of course, is the CD that i made.  the playlist is as follows. thank you thank you thank you for your suggestions. they were amazing.

lucky — jason mraz (feat. colbie caillat)

everything else disappears — sister hazel

unusual you — britney spears

like i am — ingrid michaelson

awake — secondhand serenade

banana pancakes — jack johnson

so close — jon mclaughlin

first day of my life — bright eyes

johnny and june — heidi newfield

already home — ha-ash

friday i’m in love — the cure

you and i — michael buble

you picked me –a fine frenzy

not fire, not ice — ben harper

little moments — brad paisley

when you say nothing at all — alison krauss and union station

the luckiest — ben folds

i’m pretty happy with it. it speaks to me. i’ve played it multiple times myself and will be burning a cd for MY car soon.

and in case you are like WHY ARE YOU DOING ALL OF THIS?  let me just show you what i got on a random tuesday just because i sounded stressed.

yes. those are not only flowers but daisies. and they are not the first flowers i’ve gotten.

i am the luckiest.

updates.

hi there.

i know, it’s been ages.  this week has flown by and with it, seemingly, anything interesting to say about my life. i’ve mainly just been trying to keep on keeping on.

but i have a few things to updated you on/vent about/describe. enjoy. (or don’t. some people don’t like these update-y posts. more power to you, but it’s what i’ve got.)

• the toe.  still broken. turned an impressive shade of purple earlier in the week. i have yet to try to wear regular shoes, although the doc told me to wear more supportive shoes than flip flops. i’m having trouble understanding how that can happen since these allegedly more supportive shoes often require me to STUFF MY ENTIRE BROKEN FOOT (whatever. toe. i know. hyperbole.) INTO THE WHOLE THING.  that seems, i feel, counterproductive to the whole “i avoid pain” campaign.  (pain. campaign. ha. i’ll be here all week.) but as a result of walking strangely, hobbling, and trying to walk normally (these happen in succession usually and i’ll let you guess which one i do most often), the outside of my right leg (the one with the wounded wing) hurts. in a strange way. it feels strained or pulled or something. i’ve tried massage (well, i whined a lot and got the bff to rub it for me) and it didn’t really help.  i’ve tried ibuprofen. didn’t help.  so, yeah…the broken toe is SUCKAGE.
• can’t work out really because of the toe. or, i should say, i’m afraid to try this week since it hasn’t even been a week and i really don’t want to screw it up even more than i have.  so i’ve been doing random things like crunches (which i’m actually sort of starting to feel, hallelujah) but those don’t give a good calorie burn (stupid. stupid. stupid.). but the result is that i’ve had to be SUPER self-disciplined with my eating in order to not dig myself into a hole that will freak me out and require massive amounts of effort to extract myself from.  so, the result is that i’m probably going to WAY slow down the progress, which is SO. FRUSTRATING., but…that’s life, right? you do what you can with what you’ve got.  pretty soon i’m going to try the stationary bike.  that can’t possibly hurt my foot, right?
• actually wrote a page and a half of my dissertation chapter yesterday. in a relatively short amount of time (total actual writing time? like 45 minutes.  of course, i spent three hours doing other random crap on the internet, but let’s focus on the successes, shall we?).  this gives me hope, which anchors my soul.  i believe that i can actually accomplish this thing.
• had an interview for an adjunct job on monday in jax.  i expected it to be one of those interviews where, you know, you try to sell them on you.  wrong. i walked in there (limped, probably, but that’s neither here nor there) and she basically already wanted to hire me and spent the next forty or so minutes convincing me that i wanted to work there–or at least telling me all of the things that i would be getting myself into.  it was a nice switch, let me tell you, from the solemn deathmarch that is the tenure track job market right now.   so…i’ll be working there in the late summer.  possibly in the fall as well.  and she mentioned the possibilities of visiting professor lines being opened up next year. so, there’s that. which leads me to my next point…
• decided that i’m staying in florida for the timebeing. actually, probably for a long time.  i feel really good about this decision, which is completely opposite to what i thought i would do.  i feel like even if it means adjuncting for the rest of my life, cobbling together a living based on jobs here and there, the payoffs are definitely worth it.  some things are just more important, and i’ve always felt that way.  besides, i’m still not completely counting out high school.  that actually seems sort of fun to me. does that make me insane? maybe a little.
• valentine’s day is coming up. i’m working on that project that i solicited help for. i’ve been told that i need to post the final playlist when it’s finished. i will, i promise.  i hope it’s good. your suggestions were WONDERFUL, and in some cases led me to other things which were amazing and perfect so…you all win. and hopefully i win with the bff too.
• mom comes on sunday! YAY! she hasn’t been here in AGES…and she gets to meet (finally…) the bff.  despite us being best friends for nearly three years, she’s never met him.  it’s about time, eh?

that’s about all that’s going on in my life. what’s new in yours?

perhaps dubious, but a distinction nonetheless.

i went out to lunch with the bff on friday afternoon, inbetween what we thought would be all day rehearsals for his upcoming concert.

we went to chili’s (yum…love it. too much) and on the way in, we got in each other’s way and his big foot, clad in adidas shoes, came down hard on the edge of my flip-flop wearing basically bare right foot.

and it HURT.

i thought it just hurt because, well, he’s a big guy and my foot got the brunt of the force of him stepping onto the sidewalk. (read: a lot.) and it immediately looked like he had broken the skin in one place and that it would bruise, so i assumed that’s where the pain was coming from.

so we walked into the restaurant, my foot still hurting and me not understanding why but keeping an eye on the bruise which was ever-expanding.

about ten minutes after we sat down, the pain was gone.  i was glad and assumed that it was just another one of those accidents that i am prone to that leave my feet scarred and not pretty for open toed shoes.

i was right, but not in the way that i thought.

(i’m sure you see where this is going…but i will tell my story anyways and you will like it.)

about twenty minutes after we sat down, my pinky toe started to throb in a really suspicious way. it was about this time that i looked down and realized that the bruise was spreading quickly and when the bff started joking about breaking my foot.

i laughed at first but as the throbbing continued and especially once i got up to walk (it’s odd to realize that you can actually feel something broken…) out, i wasn’t really laughing either. x-rays at student health confirmed it.

he broke my toe.

it’s kind of a hilarious story and situation, and i sure don’t blame anybody. it’s one of those crazy things that could only happen to me.  but the poor guy feels pretty horrible and has spent most of this weekend taking care of me, although there’s very little to be done except taping it to my other toe and trying to keep it from throbbing  by elevating it.

but mint oreo blizzards and lots of hugs sure help some.

but the streak is over.  i’ve now officially broken a bone.  and i broke it without even crying.  i am TOUGH.

(i mean, i cried, but not from pain…more from oh my crap what do i do now? when i was on the phone with my mom trying to decide whether or not i should go to student health or if i should just suck it up.)

at first i was really annoyed. i had been getting back to my seriously hard core workout self, planning stadiums twice a week, shred three times a week, and double gym workouts on other days. i was excited about getting results.  that’s pretty much out for a while.

but then, on the phone with my mom today, she mentioned that maybe my inability to do anything of the kind will allow me to focus on the dissertation in a way that i haven’t been since i got back.

so maybe…being broken will fix me.

hmm.