Sparking A Breakthrough: The Influence of Ms. Oprah Winfrey

Happy New Year! 


I continuously use this blog, though sparsely, to announce my ideas to change myself and my life for the better. I announce a grand plan, share some productive alteration I've made in myself, document little progress here and there. I also use this blog to whine, complain, lament, and anguish over that which I cannot control in life. 


Enough is enough! I picked up a copy of O Magazine (because I am in major Oprah Show withdrawal) and an article gave me an idea. Yes, another idea for writing that I don't seem to carry through. I'd like this year to be different. After all, tonight is New Year's Eve. Tomorrow is the first day of school for me as a teacher. It represents a fresh start, a new group of children, new dynamics with colleagues, and new challenges. This is my fourth year teaching and my fourth year in a city that I've come to call home. Despite my address, there really is not other city in which I feel at home. So there that is. And it's ok with me. 


Back to the plan. The article in O is entitled "How to Spark A Breakthrough." There are 9 steps. I've read them all and I think that I can use this article for my own purposes. I always talk about writing. I talk about it in therapy, with Matt, with those close to me and with myself all the time. I write scripts in my head..what I should have said to her, how I could have taken control of that situation, how I could be heard more clearly. I did most of my writing in my teens and early twenties and I never found myself thinking "I wish I said" because I went home and wrote it down. It was spoken, if only to the pages. 


This summer I spent the first 2 days sulking in my air-conditioned house in Worcester. I groaned about the lack of a nearby beachfront, I complained over the distance between me and my friends. I felt sad. Then I decided to actively not be sad about my circumstance. I sat out on my deck, read books, and poured cool water over myself with a watering can. Who needs ocean waves, anyway? 


I was sad because I always feel like my mom chooses my sister over me. I was sad because she never comes to visit me, never calls me really, and doesn't get that involved with what's important in my life. Then I stopped. I went to Plymouth or New Hampshire where she was spending time with my sister and the kids. We drank Michelob Ultras and she made delicious dinners for us. We laughed at nothing, the three of us, and talked a lot about being a mother. It was nice. 


At the end of the summer, I got another job in a cute little town with only 2 schools in the district. It didn't work out. The whole situation felt wrong. The administrators were openly unsupportive of early childhood special education and I found myself feeling nostalgic for blue and white bricks as I walked through the beautiful, up-to-date school. I told the sped director I no longer wanted the position. Then I marched to the superintendent's office and told him exactly why I wouldn't work there. 


The point is, I spent the summer feeling great and making a decisive effort to think and act in a way that fed my soul. I turned anger and resentment into opportunity for love and compassion. I learned that I can enjoy consecutive days alone, just reading and sunning. When faced with negative feelings, I gave myself a pep talk and turned them into something positive. This is my new goal for myself. I want to feel "zen," I want to feel bliss more than I feel rage. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and think of all the goals I'd like to accomplish before Matt and I have a child. There are a lot. One of them is being less anxious, less depressed so that my child gets nurturing energy from me. I secretly hope that I can alter genetic predispositions to these "conditions" and that I'll have a child who is more mentally stable from the get-go than I am. I just don't want my child to worry. 


Here are the 9 "rules" from the article to help spark a breakthrough. Here is also how I plan to follow them: 
1. Go Public: I will use my blog to document how I'm managing to live from this positive, authentic, compassionate stance I'm always reading about living from. 
2. Join the Club: I will spend more time visiting websites such as CrazySexyLife, the Kind Life, and reading books with like-minded messages. 
3. Confront the Risks: In my attempts to explore how to not be so reactive to situations with other people, in my discussion of communication with others close to me, I will undoubtedly offend or piss off someone. They will see themselves in the words and be pretty ticked off or view me differently. Maybe some will feel exploited. I apologize in advance for these offenses and ask for your forgiveness and understanding as I explore the opportunity to write honestly of my experience. I honor that my experience is not your own and may in fact, be off base or not entirely representative of the entire interaction. 
4. When in Doubt, DIY: I will stop asking or waiting for others to view things as I view them. I will stop wishing for others to react as I wish they would. I will stop waiting to make the changes I desire and instead...I will be responsible for my own life. 
5. Rely on the Kindness of Strangers: I hope to motivated by comments to this blog, maybe an increase in followers, and hopefully I can help someone else on their path as well. 
6. Know Your Strengths: I think I'm a good writer. I wince as I write those words out, I imagine a "better" writer reading my blog and scoffing at it's simplicity or lack of difficult vocabulary. So, in the spirit of this quest I will write it again. I am a good writer. Writing has always helped me and healed me. 
7. Spread the Word: Work on my reactions in the moment. Speak kindly, act kindly, and maybe even speak less. This will be the biggest challenge. I'm not sure how to balance being compassionate with also acknowledging if something was actually unkind of another. 
8. Cultivate Wonder: My job breaks my back and my heart. This year instead of living that pain so much, I'd like to concentrate on what went right that day, what made me smile, how I helped. 
9. Embrace Your Critics: This is something I need to work on in myself. I am constantly seeking the approval and recognition of others. I want to be thanked for my hard work, respected for my contributions in my professional life, and I want to be accepted. I want to be the best at everything I do and I feel competitive with those around me. I even find myself speaking out loud of how I'm doing something better than "they" are in an attempt for someone to affirm it for me. Yikes. Writing that was scary. I can feel the horror from anyone reading this, but it's the truth. I have to say it. How can I use the energy I put into working toward being "noticed" (classic middle child syndrome) into something more productive? 


So there it is. All of it. I hope I stick to it. I hope someone reads along and that motivates me to be accountable in following through. I'm excited to see what this may evolve into for me. Now, I must go fold laundry. 

Friend For Rent

We have new friends across the street. They don't know that they are my friends yet, but soon enough, they will know it. A young couple has moved into the house across the street. They drive 4 door vehicles. They don't come out of their house. They moved in during Memorial Day weekend. They must have jobs because they bought a house. This is all I know about my new friends. I plan on going over to meet them, bringing a basket of goodies. I hope they don't decide to move out because the kids on our street are so annoying. But back to the point here...

This is the first potential friendship in Worcester that I can see. I'd like to meet them and become friends. I envision myself text messaging the girl and asking if she wants to watch Glee at my house tonight. If she wants to have some wine out on the porch and Matt will light us a fire. 

I'm really not sure if I can do this. Not that it's actually a reality yet, but I am trying to imagine it. I'm trying to picture not driving down River St., not passing signs for Harvard Square. It would really mean leaving Boston for me. I've been connected to that city since I was 19 years old and sometimes it is the only place that feels like home. I certainly don't feel home at my parents' house. The actual structure of my house feels like home, but nothing about the surroundings. I love how I can get lost all day in Cambridge and I'm never truly lost. For one, I can always give Tracy a quick call to set me right, but more often than not I find my own way just fine. I know how to get around Somerville, Brighton, Cambridge and enough of Brookline. I can go to the airport and back without any problems. For me, all of this is monumental. I wouldn't even get on the city bus and go a few stops until I'd been living in the city for 2 years. I was afraid to walk places and whenever I got lost I'd immediately burst into tears. I absolutely LOVE being able to get around and know where I'm going. I think its less about not being lost and more about having a sense of belonging and ownership. Such a comfort. 

I'm sure someday I'll have that sense here. Maybe it would even be hard to leave one day. It's really all about the people I meet. It's not that I can find my way around Brighton with ease, it's that down every main street is a memory. Every short cut I know is one I learned on a drive with someone who meant something to me. It's the same in every town I know. I drive every road in Worcester sitting alongside Matt or by myself. He is plenty for me, but he isn't enough. Girlfriends are so valuable. I miss the talking, the singing along to girly songs, the long conversations over a restaurant table. I miss the opportunity to sit on a couch and share a laugh over the way someone shouted out directions in the car last time we road tripped it, over the funny face someone made just then, over the ridiculous comment. I miss being able to call a girlfriend and say, "What are you doing right now? Let's....." I miss having the chance to change my plans and say to myself, "Watching sports is not what I'm doing tonight." And then a simple phone call fixes that situation. I miss being with someone that isn't essential to my life plan so that I can discuss and analyze my life's plans with them. I just miss having girlfriends. I knew I'd see everyone less when I moved out here. I knew it would be a new kind of lonely for me. It doesn't get easier though. In some way, it becomes more difficult to settle into living with Matt, into this house and have no existence of that other part of my life. 

When everything is finally so settled and sweet, it almost feels wrong to miss anyone. But I do. I look forward to the day when I know some people here and I have another group of people that I couldn't imagine leaving. Just as I have now in Cambridge. Difficult as it may be when the time comes, it makes it worth it to have people so important you don't want to let go of them. 

I wrote this a few weeks ago.

May 12, 2011 

I’d love to talk a teacher who has made it. Someone who has managed to have a whole career in teaching and not gotten their heart broken. Mine hurts all the time, there have been so many moments throughout the year where I’ve fought off tears around these little people. They are so helpless and vulnerable to whatever happens in their world. It is just crushing to me. They arrive with dirty feet, dirty bodies, stained clothes that smell, they act like wild children because they’ve never had anyone set a boundary, show them what is ok and what is not. 

I feel their pain when they wrap their skinny arms around my neck and nuzzle their noses against my shoulder. I feel all their sleepless nights, I hear all the yelling in their houses, see all the violence, hear the sound of police sirens. I smell the smoke and see the bleary eyes of the adults around them. I feel the hunger pains in their bellies and the uncomfortable fullness you feel when your main food is a frozen pizza. My eyes are sore with their restlessness from not sleeping, from all the disturbing noise, from not having their own bed. 

The hardest part for me is that once they leave my classroom door for the last time, I will never see them again. I put all of my soul into these children and then a date in June passes and our time is over. I’ll never be able to offer comfort, love or a simple hug again. I can’t play songs for them and dance, making them giggle. I can’t praise their efforts with crayons and paper. I can’t help to guide them away from patterns that won’t help them, guide them away from their distrust and show them that not all of us are unreliable. 

All I can really do is control how I feel about all of it. All I can really do is find peace inside of myself to deal with it all, to process and let go. That task right now, seems so insurmountable. Its enough to battle my own brain, but now adding all of this additional pain, it just becomes too much. Sometimes I think I’m just not cut out for this job. That I’m too sensitive, that maybe I’m making a big deal out of things that aren’t so bad. That maybe I’m showing a weaker side of myself every day, that I am not strong enough. Maybe not strong at all. Maybe its not even the tough lives of these kids, maybe its the way I lead mine that makes being surrounded by them so difficult. Maybe its all the times I’ve had my heart broken before. It could just be inherently weak now, it no longer knows how to beat through the adversity. I cry at Glee every single week. When the gay kid gets beat up, when the average girl gets abandoned for the pretty girl. I cry when the dad gives an honest speech to his son, guiding him exactly how a parent should. I cry at TV commercials, watching a wedding, hearing a story about someone else who is having trouble. I cry just thinking. This all started when I began this job, instead of the years building a tough shell around me I have become a big, blob of compassion. I almost can’t hear other people tell me about what is wrong in their lives because then I bring it inside of me, wrap it up warmly and hold it there. There is almost nothing left of me. 

At the end of the day I am exhausted. I want to do nothing but sit and stare at the television. I have begun to abandon all the shows I used to enjoy, like Grey’s Anatomy because I can’t handle watching the dramas unfold. Instead I watch The Real Housewives because there is nothing real about them. 

Tonight I rediscovered the album “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” by Alanis Morissette. Two songs that I’ve been listening on repeat as I’ve written this: That I Would Be Good and Thank U. 

That I would be good

That I would be good even if I did nothing

That I would be good even if I got a thumbs down 

That I would be good if I got and stayed sick 

That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds 

That I would be fine even if I went bankrupt 

That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth

That I would be great if I was no longer queen 

That I would be grand if I was not all knowing 

That I would be loved even when I numb myself 

That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed 

That I would be loved even when I was fuming 

That I would be good even if I was clinging 

That I would be good even if I lost sanity 

That I would be good whether with or without you 

After all, isn’t this the message of what we all truly want? Aren’t we happiest if we know that despite everything and nothing that we are, we are OK? 

Health Makes Me Nuts

So, I want to be a healthy person. Over the past year I think I've gotten much closer. But it's just so difficult to walk on by that blue box full of macaroni noodles and powdered cheese mix. I don't know why I get on these "naughty food" kicks, but I'm sure when I actually open my copy of Women, Food, and God I'll learn the reason. According to Ms. Geneen Roth, our relationship with food is a direct mirror of how we feel about ourselves in every aspect of life.

My relationship with food means that I am just too damn tired and too lazy to put the effort into making good choices. I'm so exhausted most of the time that I want what is convenient and what I know brings me a nice, yummy feeling. Of course, as Ms. Geneen Roth clearly states, what we often seek when we're feeling bored and lazy and fed up makes us feel even MORE bored and lazy and fed up. So, what's a girl to do?

I am joining the Kris Carr crazysexydiet train. I bought the book several months ago and read through it, feeling totally inspired and excited about how I was going to feel after doing it. And the "it" isn't all that complicated. Truly the only new thing for me is the juicing. I plan on buying myself a juicer (credit cards are amazing) and getting to work. I'm posting my health goals below because then at least I have some sort of public forum to hold me accountable. Although, I know that there are no readers of this blog as of now, I like to pretend that someone out there reads along.

Healthy Glow Goals: 

1. Make healthy eating choices during the week with one weekend splurge of some luxurious cheese. I see no reason to deny myself these small pleasures when embarking on such a huge undertaking of positive change. Try new recipes, eat organic, whole foods whenever possible!

2. Meditate daily. I'm going to make myself an altar and get serious about getting silent. Breathing always feels so beautiful.

3. Get JUICED! I'm actually pretty excited about starting to juice. I used to drink Super Green Food all the time when I was a nanny and I developed a taste for drinking green drinks. I'm looking forward to seeing the health benefits that Kris Carr says come with juicing.

4. Yoga. Discover my OM. I want to take one yoga class a week. I have 4 classes prepaid at a yoga studio in Worcester. I need to use them and then see if there is a closer studio so I can eliminate that excuse for not going. Plus, I LOVE yoga. I feel happier just talking about it and thinking about the way the classes make me feel. If thinking about yoga can make my mood instantly lift, I can't even imagine what regular practice would do for me.

5. Write. I want to write every day but if not, almost every day. There was something to my keeping journals in high school. I think processing my thoughts and emotions gave me some space from my living inside my head. I think it keeps me more sane. I also enjoy it.

6. Go for walks. I'm not concerned with running at this point because of my back injury. I am concerned with being outside, breathing fresh air, and moving my body.

7. Practicing gratitude. I think the past few months I've been so caught up in what isn't working, what's not going well, who is letting me down, what hasn't gone my way, blah. It's so negative and dark and dreary in my world right now. I need to do something to remember all the good that there is in my life. Including, in my job. I really need to make a point of acknowledging at least one positive moment from each day. Finding the positive will hopefully show me that there is always a positive to take away.

Bring on the peace.

Teacher burnout? Or just one big, fat mistake?

I actually googled the term "teacher burnout" tonight just to see what would come up. I saw the following definition in an old NY Times article: "when a teacher feels emotionally exhausted at the end of the day, appears cynical or uncaring about what happens to students and feels as if he or she has reached few personal goals." 


Sadly, this is me right now. Even though I've been out of work for the past two weeks (one for my back injury and one for April vacation), I was over it after about 20 minutes of being back in the classroom today. It feels like no one listens, parents send in sick children, lots of kids aren't bathed, parents are needy, kids are whiny and need so much individual attention that is seems impossible. I don't like listening to screaming, being snotted on, spit on, kicked and hit. I'm just over the whole thing. The worst part is...I don't really care. I feel so apathetic about the entire experience of teaching right now. Every night I job search and google away the minutes trying to devise a backup plan for myself. 


There's just one problem. I haven't ever wanted to do anything else in my life. I started telling people "I want to be a teacher" when I was 7 years old, maybe even sooner. There is no alternative for me. I have literally dedicated my entire life to learning about children. I know what makes them laugh, I know what makes them angry, I can dismantle or put together a group activity in a matter of moments. I can engage groups of children that I meet at a child's birthday party, as a nanny on a beach, or in the middle of a classroom. I have taken children on trains, buses, walks, etc. and they have always survived. I've visited children in homeless shelters, hospitals, living rooms, playgrounds, sketchy apartment buildings, and made connections. I've been abused by parents, taken advantage of, lied to, misled, belittled, and on the rare occasion even thanked. 


My profession has been demeaned by my supposed colleagues, my efforts gone unnoticed and under appreciated, misunderstood despite my explanation, and likened to "babysitting" by the very parents of the children I work to educate. I'm plain old sick and tired. When seeking the advice of veteran teachers I have been told on multiple occasions, by several, "take up drinking." I've also been told to have a back up plan. 


It is this elusive back up plan that confuses me. All my life I've been told that if I followed my bliss, did what made my heart happy, entered public service, I would not only be content in my choice and live each day feeling "so good about myself" but I would be rewarded with respect and admiration from those who were not strong enough to work with people and had chosen jobs sitting behind a desk. 


I used to pride myself on the fact that I was not going to be like most of the kids I graduated high school with and just work for my dad making rich peopler richer. Now, I think, maybe they all had it right all along. I check facebook too often. I see what they're all doing now. They work in cushy jobs (at least it seems so since I never see a post about exhaustion from work) and they make money. Or, they work in a fun little job and their parents still give them money. It's unclear. However, what IS clear, are the pictures of the multiple  tropical vacations taken each year, the long weekends at the ski lodge, the trips to the Cape house all summer long. It makes me think that my theory that all these kids are entitled assholes might just be wrong and they are in fact quite clever. 


I do not plan tropical vacations. I do not have a summer house to visit. I do not have a bank account which enables me to purchase lovely new clothes each season. I don't have a personal trainer or even a gym membership to help maintain my perfect body. I don't even that good gene that all rich people seem to have, the gene that makes them all skinny. Basically, I sit at home because I'm too broke to go shopping, battling my weight, stressed beyond measure, and drowning in a career path that brings me financial pressures and very little emotional payback. 


So, am I just experiencing burnout after 3 years of this? Did I make a colossal LIFE mistake following the mantra "do what you love?" Or is it possible that I've just been in a really, really bad mood for the past 3 months? 

Everything changes in your twenties and your twenties change everything.

On my first date with Matt, I was a 24 year old with a new master's degree, one week of teaching under my belt, a new apartment and new roommates. I had been living the single girl's life in the city and really enjoying the freedom in that. I stayed out at bars until they closed, I walked home alone texting and ordered pizzas to share at 3am. I drank Bud Light or Miller High Life exclusively because they were cheap. I wore lots of brown and chandelier earrings. I had super long, blonde hair and could run 3 blocks wearing high heels. I worked out only occasionally and that meant 25 minutes on an elliptical trainer texting a cute boy about where he was going that night.

This was only 3 years ago. When Matt picked me up for our first date I wasn't ready. My roommate had woken me up from a nap (boy, did that first week of teaching really wear me out!) and I was in the shower when he knocked on the door. I answered the door with wet hair, a towel around me, and gave him a beer to drink while he talked to my roommate. I had only lived there a few days so I rummaged through trash bags to find shoes to wear. My cheeks were pink from liberally applied blush and the heat of the blow dryer. I wore hot pink high heels so high and so tight on my chubby feet that they left red marks and blisters from just putting them on. I hoped he wouldn't notice that I wasn't graceful enough for them.

At dinner we talked about his trip to Spain in high school, favorite spots in Brighton, our families and friends and all the standard first date chats. He talked with his hands and didn't seem bored with me. He asked me so much about myself, it was strange not to have to carry the conversation. The restaurant was really hot and his brow got a little sweaty. I smiled and gave him permission to wipe it with his napkin; he seemed aware and self-conscious about it. His teeth were perfectly straight and we talked about how he'd never had braces. His hair was so dark and his knees touched mine under the table because his legs were long. He asked me so politely if I'd like a second glass of sangria and he was not wearing sneakers. I had never been on a date with someone not wearing sneakers. I had never been on a date with someone who owned dress shoes. When he excused himself to go to the restroom, I called my sister and whispered into the phone, "I feel like I'm on the first date with my husband." I hung up quickly so he wouldn't come back and see I'd made a call.

When dinner was over we met my roommates at a nearby bar for drinks. This was standard dating procedure, whenever any of us went on a date the others waited at a nearby bar. If the date was awful, it was a quick "thanks for dinner" and straight to the bar to tell the horror story to the girls. If it was decent,  well then my friends just happened to be out nearby, did he want to stop for a drink with them? With this plan, we could all judge him together. As he ordered me a beer at the bar, I confessed to my friends that he seemed really great but I wasn't sure if he was too serious for me. The front man of the ac/dc cover band sprang his tiny body up onto the bar (yes, there was a cover band at the bar). The guy grabbed a bottle of whiskey and started pouring it into open mouths below. Embarrassed that this was where I'd taken the man wearing dress shoes, I looked up at Matt. He was stood next to me, occasionally putting his hand on the small of my back and making conversation with my friends. I watched as he opened his mouth, let in a big swig of whiskey and grinned.

It's funny how little things tell you a lot about a person. I wasn't looking to learn that Matt had a drinking problem (which he does not, by the way) but more that he could relax with me. It's been 2 and half years now and being with Matt has taught me that it really isn't what a person says, its what he does. I was always looking for red flags in my life, signs that showed me to back away, move forward, make a change. I had never let myself see the other kind of sign, the "white flags" of surrender to the good stuff.

Now my Saturday nights are slow dancing in the kitchen and wine by the fireplace. Watching rented movies on the couch or heading to happy hour. Its crock pot meals and cups of tea. Scented candles and loads of laundry. I've planted my big white flag in our front lawn and I've surrendered. He is my home.

Letters in my head.

Recently I've been writing letters in my head. I'm wondering if this is normal, if this is something that others do. It's becoming so frequent that I can't stop drafting letters. Then I thought---that would be a neat way to tell a story. Maybe since I'm pretending to be a writer in my head all of the time, I can take my imaginary correspondence to more permanent product. Here is a list of persons/organizations to whom I've drafted letters in my head:

1. Superintendent of my school district--regarding the unjust parking situation at my school and my lack of a computer and printer--3rd year in a row.

2. Translator Man--I hold you personally responsible for much of the events that transpired in my professional life this fall. You are a meddler. My letters to you are never nice, but they are always so eloquent that the powers-at-be have no choice but to terminate your employment. Forever.

3. A woman at work--sometimes I feel glad to know that she exists. It sounds a bit stalker-esque, I know, but she is light to me. Always positive, always literally glowing with joy or reason in madness. I don't even speak with her often. But I write her letters appreciating her positivity.

4. G--we are coming to the end of our journey together. I write a lot of letters to you. You are my inspiration, you hold a big piece of my heart, it breaks a bit with each day that brings us closer to our separation. I would teach you forever if you'd have me.

5. Mom--I write letters to the mom that I knew as a child. The one whistling as she did housework, the one "resting her eyes" on the steps of deck she waited for our school bus, the one who surprised us with cinnamon rolls on cold winter mornings. Mom--to you now. To the part of you I feel is lost, the part of you I'm becoming an adult friend to, and the part of you that I feel determined to bring peace.

6. Brother. What happened to us? And this letter goes on and on...

7. Matt. To whom I dedicate all my love letters.

8. T and J at work--I write you cards, specifically. Thank you cards, in my head, every night before I go to sleep. Maybe its my way of thanking the universe for you both and all you've brought to my life recently.

9. Z. I know you're sad. I know your life is hard. I want to help you. I love you.

10. To all the little souls I'm surrounded by each day: I love you. Thank you for giving me more love than I ever thought possible. Thank you for making this so much more than a job. You break my heart, you build me up, you make me laugh, and you show me how resilient is the human spirit.

Perhaps this is why I never sleep through the night.