As promised, but sorely lacking

I know I didn’t post for a whole week. It was a rough week. Well, sometimes it was rough, other times it was disappointing and occasionally it was just really weird. Work was what was rough. And since my only computer access is at work, and while at work I didn’t have anything nice to say, nor did I feel like communicating at all, well, those are my excuses. When I don’t have anything to say, I have a really hard time inventing something. It takes me all sorts of time to process thoughts. I can be frustratingly slow at figuring out exactly what I am thinking or feeling. It was a rough week. It was a long week. It was rough in the normal-person kind of rough, which is actually a refreshing blessing in an odd sort of a way. It felt nice to be frustrated with my boss, legitimately anxious about something instead of generally anxious about nothing, and emotionally exhausted at the end of the day because I was actually making efforts, not simply because I was trying to function. On a positive note, I am beginning to separate myself from work a little better, so when work hours are over, I no longer stress about them. I am not placing my identity in my job. It’s just not healthy. My job is where I go in order to be able to afford to do the things I want to do. It is a little sad that it has to be that way, since it hasn’t always. But it’s ok now, since I live in a place where I have an identity outside of my job.


Let me begin at the beginning. I did, in fact change my hair color, to the appropriate shade of brown for fall. And I would love to post a picture of it, but I cannot seem to take a decent picture of my own head. If I succeed, or if anyone else does, trust that it will be posted. I also had the purple done again. Just in the back, underneath. And when my lovely students saw it, the boys said "Ewww!" and the girls said "you look like a princess". And the boys ran away and the girls decided to fix my hair so I could go to ball and dance with a handsome prince. In a very real way, this represents my personal social history. My girlfriends often plan some sort of an imaginary ball (by which I mean their own weddings) and I resign myself to letting them do my makeup, them hoping for a handsome prince to show up and me knowing that it is all the Disney propaganda speaking in their brains. Then we get to the ball and the only one who actually dances with a handsome prince is the one who came prepared with some poor sucker that was socially obligated to perform. The rest of the boys run away. I can already hear you people now, accusing me of being bitter. And you might think that if you are simply reading this and assigning a tone of voice to it in your mind. But the fact of the matter is, I am endlessly amused by it. So read this with my amused tone of voice in your brain. I am amused especially by the four-year old that openly daydreams about it, because I know that there exists a twisted dichotomy in every girl. Half of her is still stuck in that preschooler’s daydream that looks like a Disney movie, and half of her is keeping her eyes open to the reality that daydreams do little more than sell merchandise. It's a war that we fight within ourselves, and if we let one half win too much ground, we are immediately labeled as either "bitter" or "flighty". (Although flighty may be too old-fashioned a term nowadays. How about “silly” or “cheesy”?) At any rate, you can easily see that I am generally judged to be in the bitter camp. Until you look at my movie collection.

I played Scrabble with my Grandfather on Sunday night. I do that a lot. It really is what completes a Sunday for me. I missed it terribly when I was in Minnesota, and you would be amazed at how hard it is to find someone willing to play Scrabble with you. We usually play two games, with a large bowl of M&M’s between us. And he usually beats me, although not by much. We break 100 points by our fourth turn, 200 by the 10th turn, and it is a race to see who can hit 300 by the end of the game. But last Sunday he was having a rough day, and I creamed him solidly on the first game. The second game I tried to let him win, if nothing else to make me feel better, and I still won. Don’t mis-judge me, I can be terribly competitive, especially when it comes to Scrabble and games that I know I am good at. But I want my 90-year old Grandfather to always be able to beat me at Scrabble. I want his wit to always catch me off guard, and I want him to remember every word to every song he has ever sung. This was perhaps the only time in my life I was sad to have won at Scrabble.

Monday morning I sat with the little girls fixing my hair when my boss asked to speak with me. She is concerned that my classroom is too clean. Not as in "lacking in toys and games", but as in "scrubbing the chairs". That’s right, in the evenings, when there are only a few children left, I scrub the chairs and tables. And it is a problem because??? Because I should be spending that time playing with the kids. Never mind that there is food and paint stuck to the furniture that has been there for at least as long as I have been in the classroom. I haven't gotten around to all of them yet, because it takes that much time too peel petrified fruit smears off the seat of a blue-plastic chair. I asked her if she was at all concerned that the children were sitting in filth and she told me that wasn't an issue. I will grant that I may be a bit obsessive about this kind of clean, so I have been refraining from cleaning the furniture, and it is driving me crazy! It is a little confusing for me as well since at the Minnesota school, licensing required that we clean things once a week. Apparently things are different here. Chalk it up to a difference of opinion, I can live with that, at least now I am better informed. I solemnly swear to leave my classroom in filth so that the children can have more playtime. At least, I swear it during work hours. But as a result, I am heading home to scrub my kitchen, every night.

Tuesday work was much of the same and I found myself at the chapel to practice directly afterwards. I played for more hours than usual, and am excited to actually be making progress. Plus, that was the night I realized that I am getting better at separating work from real life.

Weds night I went up to Clearfield to see a show with some friends, and I got to see lots of old friends in the process. Some that I planned on seeing, some I was hoping to see, some that were completely unexpected, and I was thrilled at seeing all of them. The best part of seeing old friends is when they have grown and changed, they have become happier and wiser and yet your friendship remains secure. It is great to me that some bonds remain even when the people they join are growing. It is a little frustrating to see people that you were once close to, and the bond has become limp and useless, but still exists. I saw 3 people that night that I have worked closely with onstage, and talking to them was awkward at best. Some were from a show that affected me more profoundly than any other show (Peter Pan), and the distance was painful. It felt almost the same as when you see an old mission companion, and you have had great experiences with them, but your relationship was based entirely upon those experiences, so you say an awkward hello, you wish you could convey your love, and you walk away sincerely hoping the best for them, without being able to say why. I am grateful that I had other friends there with whom the bond has never changed, and while the show we did together wasn't as affecting or profound (Seussical), the friendships are.

That was one of my weird experiences of the week, and it has taken me some time to process that one.

The week continued in much the same way. I had some great experiences with friends, old and new, some wonderful conversations that are still running in and out of my brain, and I had some frustrations in communicating with my boss which are strands that occasionally bump into the conversations with my friends and make me question my sanity and my current path. That's all good, but it leaves me a little addled as far as putting together a coherent blog entry.

It will all be ok, though, because Grandpa beat me at Scrabble last night.