Two thousand thirteen

I first started to compose this post while I was in the shower. And like all my post that I start else where, only half of it remains now that I am able to type it out. It's very near the end of 2013, a year that seemed for the first time in a long time to take its full chronology to pass. Maybe it's my romance with nostalgia or all the Best Of post I've been reading on Buzzfeed, but this year seemed especially full. I wouldn't cheapen it by trying to say nothing important happened this year. I changed careers, became  certified teacher (in two content areas), say goodbye to some very good friends, said hello to others. I fulfilled a life long ambition to travel the world and returned home not so much whole as overwhelmed, full and more determined to achieve those "Before I turn 35" goals I wrote down so long ago.

I grew spiritually, something I don't talk a lot about because I want it to be evident not by my words but by my actions. I lead a small group at my church and out of all the teachery things I do, I think this one has never made me more happy and closer to God. Every time we meet, I am glad and excited I woke up and came to small group. Something else I fully embraced this year was drinking. I wouldn't have called myself a drinker before this year. Someone who enjoyed a drink every know and again, or did actually drink, yes, but not a drinker per se. I accepted that part of me and what I thought I would feel (shame, disappointment) wasn't actually what I felt. Relief was the first, strongest emotion, followed by happiness and boldness. I was glad to identify as one of those people who frequents a bar enough to know the staff by name and have a "regular" drink. I felt a settling deep inside me like my foundation, the very core of who I am, was being set. It felt great and only helped to make me feel like I am becoming who I should be.

I've never been a person who wanted a do-over in life. Mostly because I believe in learning from life and moving on but also because I don't like to live in the past. Looking back too much can stop you from living your future or even more dangerous, not living in the present. If I had the opportunity to life this year over again, I don't think I would change any decisions I made. I might have stayed in London an extra day, I might have taken that extra road trip to Austin or Oklahoma, but for the most part I would have lived life the same.

I thank God for giving me such an amazing year. It was fantastic and you know what? So was I.  

Very Early Morning To You

After having a very nice lunch with my friend Pearlie, recording a new episode of Gramblings with Mattie & Lewis, and creating a metric ton of inside jokes at Karla's going away shindig, I came home to edit audio and get a nights rest. It is currently 4:24 AM and I have yet to be asleep or really be tired. I'm unsure if  it is the excitement of starting a new job tomorrow, the joy and sorrow of being creative again and bidding farewell to a friend, or just the allure of the internet to keep me from my bed. Here I am writing, what I am sure is nonsense, at half past four in the morning.

Why am I writing? Mostly because I haven't in months. I could say I have been busy, which would be an honest excuse, but mostly because I didn't feel like expressing my feelings from this side of a keyboard. For the first time in a number of years, I didn't have to write a paper or critique or lesson plan or anything. And so I didn't. I traveled, read books, watch TV, saw movies. Talked with people, face to face. I met people from other countries. I ate food I've never had. I shared insights and gained knowledge and lived.

I wouldn't say I wasn't living life before this summer. It was a different type of living, the kind that wears you down, breaks you of your weaknesses and makes you strong because you refuse to give in or give up. For the past two months, I've been living the type of life that fills ever cell of your body with a radiance so bright and full, it won't stay inside you. People notice it on your face, in your speech, in your walk. I've loved every moment of it and hope the rest of this year and the next are very much like it.

I went to the UK in the past two months, you can read about that here.

Won't do for myself

I feel like I never write any more. My thoughts are cluttered in one small space in my head, fading away to nothingness because I don't give them a voice. My musings, atrophied and weak, stop demanding my attention after awhile and the writing I want to do never happens.

I do write, everyday usually. These words are academic and sterile, explaining the learning process or how to teach children a better way to remember vocabulary words. These words have perpetual shotgun in my brain, always feed first, always written down. They aren't inspiring or beautiful or even pretty but they are what my words are sacrificed for.

Of Gingers & Restlessness

My sleep was fairly restless last night. I wasn't particularly tired but as morning comes and so does work, night is for sleeping. So I laid down and dreamt about a man I've never met. Honestly, will never meet if truth be told. I was on a trip to England, a study abroad trip. I was in a pub by myself having a drink. I saw him walk in, a tall thin man with brilliantly red hair and so much arrogance I swear I could smell it on him. I caught his gaze as he strolled pass my table. He winked at me. I ignored him. I was in a fowl mood and sulking, about what I can't remember.

I finished my drink and stood to leave. As I turned, I found him standing in my way, his hands in his coat pockets. I found this odd, an Englishman who didn't take off his coat when he came in a building. I excused my way around him, he called out something about needing the code to my door. I didn't know what he was talking about so I kept walking. He followed me out. For some reason this didn't affect the way I thought it would. I wasn't afraid of him so much as I irritated by him. I didn't want to be bothered.

He chatted at me as I walked. Sometime I would look at him and that was all the encouragement he needed. He would talk more, make sly comments about 'Us' like we were an item. As if somehow I'd forgotten we were a couple. Thought I wasn't afraid of this man, I knew better then to walk to my place so I just walked around well lit areas hoping he wouldn't notice I wasn't going in any particular direction. After walking for an hour, he finally asked when we could stop walking and actually go to my flat. I noticed in all his chatting he's not English but Scottish.

The dream then cuts to a rather compromising scene of the two of us together, our limbs intertwined, our skin in sharp contrast against one another. The dream then cuts again, to a tan girl, her face freckled, her hair a wild nest of red curls. This girl is obviously our daughter, her face very similar to mine, her eyes and height belonging to her father. She stands on a hill looking into the distance. What she is looking at I do not know nor can I see it.

This is the entirety of my dream, it's ending sharp and sudden. Perhaps this is how all dreams are supposed to end. It's finale a rushing crash of consciousness.