Grandpa

I am fortunate to have my grandparents still in my life. My entire life they have given me unconditional love and support. When my mom and I were broke, they bought me school clothes. When I had a speech tournament, they showed up to watch me. When I fell apart, their home was open to me. I just walk in and feel safe. I wonder how they do that?

My grandpa turns 80 today. He's smart and funny and full of life. We talk every night just to check in. A couple of weeks ago, we had an arguement and I was totally freaked out about it, but he still called me the next day. He tells me the truth whether I want to hear it or not and he will always be there!

Happy 80th, Grandpa!

Tired..

This week I found my self living for friday and I hate it when I do that. I truly want to enjoy each day, but it seems like there is so much to do and so little time to do it that life just passes by in a frenized moment. Teaching is hard. There are so many papers to grade, lesson plans to write, kids to calm down, state tests to give, and paperwork to fill out that sometimes I don't feel like I get to teach and then real life gets in the way. My sister was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in January; she made it through surgery and the one really big dose of radiation and honestly we thought that was enough. Then my brother got sick. Thirty years old and he has cancer in his colon, his liver, his lymph nodes, and maybe his pancrease. His been given anywhere from 3 months to 5 years to live. The crazy thing is that he is finally pulling his life back together. He was accpeted into a two year PTSD clinic, but now he doesn't think he even has two years. It just seems wrong that both my siblings have been diagnosed with cancer in the last four months. I feel guilty and helpless.

All of that was really whiny...but I feel better after getting it all out on "paper".

Change..

Can you pinpoint the second something changes or does it happen so gradually that one day the change catches you by surprise? I can't remember the moment I fell in love with him, I just know that one day I looked at him, tried to imagine my life without him, and realized I was in love with him. I didn't make a choice to love him because I don't know if I had been asked that if I would have said "yes". I knew that love was hard. I did make little choices everyday, like studying with him, having dinner, and allowing him to hear some of my secrets that brought me to that one big moment of realization...

In January my sister was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer. She finished her treatments at the end of February and last week we found out my brother has Colon Cancer. There was no gradual change in these situations. One moment life was fine and the next it wasn't.

All of this has made me thing about the choices that I make and with each one wonder if this decison might be the one that will change things completly.

Craziness

Cancer Carnival day at PCHS. It is for a great cause and it is a lot of fun but it drives me insane. Every rule put into place and enforced throughout a year is shot to hell. They can have cell phones, ipods, hats...just a little bit of crazy.

So, this week I realized that I'm emotionaly attached to my students and that consistency does work. For nine weeks, I have forced kids to meet the standards set for them and they have whined, complained, and cussed me out but suddenly on week 10, like magic, they became human...most of them.

Never a bridesmaid...

For those of you who don't know me in real life, this will come as a suprise. I am a fat. Not husky, not overweight, not burlesque, or volvuptious, but just fat. I have been for the majority of my life and it is not that I haven't tried to diet. You name it and I've been tried it; for a while it works and then life gets stressful and I slip in a chocolate covered puddle. I'm not happy with my weight. I realize that it is destroying my health. However, it is the way I am right now and so I have to deal with it.

My best friend is getting married. I am not a bridesmaid. With some reluctance, she asked me to read a poem. Her sister and her nieces are her bridesmaids and I have not problem with that. Her Maid of Honor I struggle with a bit, since Jen was banned from her wedding, but Heather is thin and beautiful. Jen loves me. She is my cousin as well as my friend and so I have known her throughout her entire life. We've been best friends for the last 10 years. She doesn't mean to hurt my feelings. She wants me to play the role of maid of honor, she just doesn't want me to mess up the photograph. I was thinking about all of this and that made me think about online classes and I realized that the fact that you can't see me might be the reason I like them so much. People get to know me for who I am as a person through my writing. Unless, I make a concious choice, the majority of you who read this will never know what I look like. When I write, I feel like I can truly be the person that I am.

Okay. Done.

Daddies

There was a theme about my day and I thought I would share. I work at Sylvan Learning Center as well as at the high school and today was my day to administer test. I had the privledge of working with a beautiful, funny, smart little girl for two hours. Her dad brought her in, a little nervous and little more than unsure. You could see an aura of protection emitting from him the whole time. He had brought her with a bag of doughnut holes and with her hair in pigtails and leaving her was the last thing he wanted to do. He shared with me that he is her biological dad but she lives with her mom and stepdad. He didn't know some information that I could tell he thought he should have and he felt guilty...but he did know that she loves "High School Musical" :) When he picked her up, he asked how he would recieve progress reports since he wouldn't be at the meetings..could he have them e-mailed or faxed or a phone call. How would he know? He walked outside with her, kissed her, picked her up (even though she is in second grade) and carried her to the car. My co-worker was watching this with me and commented on how sweet but sad this moment was. It made me miss my dad and the days when he could pick me up and make the problems of the world disappear.

I came home and was writng "Twisted" by Laurie Halse Anderson and was amazed at the father/son relationship in the story. A dad who roared and bellowed and loved..but didn't know how to show it. It talked about how a parent can kill their child without ever laying a hand on them and the things we should learn from our parent's mistakes. I cried again.

I moved down to the computer to check facebook and all things important and saw that there was a new message on my buddy Mike's blog. The story of baby Mia and the fight she and her parents are in seemed to fit in so perfectly with my day to remind me that I should be thankful for the life I life. Thankful for stinky teenagers with more issues than "The New Yorker". Thankful for my mother and the problems that she feels willing to talk to me about. Thankful for a best friend to be mad at..thankful.

I added Mike's blog so you can check out Baby Mia and the pictures he took of her and her family. God is good.

http://mikesteelman.com/blog/

Forget what I said earlier

I just need a snow day. Maybe two.