A Look Back In Time

A little glimpse at a recently hired 21 year old English teacher staring her last few days of summer before her first year teaching in the cold, scary, acne infested, adolescent face...in other words, I found this in a notebook that I was writing in on July 2, 2008. It's a little depressing, somewhat laughable, and a little ironic in light of my current situation.

"I got a job. A real 9-5, go everyday, on salary with benefits (I don't actually have benefits now which makes this even funnier. At the time I assumed all under paid educators in America at least got insurance. Ha.) adult, real world, childhood is over forever, your life will never be fun again, job. I didn't want a job. I got a job because that's what you do after college if you don't go to grad school of some other more interesting alternative. I took the boring, not worth talking about route...It seems so boring and routine. It's like once you enter the working world you don't ever make it back to the spontaneous world you lived in before. I chalk the job up to peer pressure. Everyone else got one. Why wouldn't I? What throws my job into an even less notable category is that I'm going to teach. It seems so weird. Why would I teach? How did I get to this point? How did I devote 4 years of my life to become a teacher? I don't really feel like I am the person I used to be. This is a logical thought when you consider the maturation process that is college. However, I think the version of myself 4 years ago was a lot cooler. I feel so average. I hate the thought of being average. Average is the first step toward failure. Nonetheless, I got a job...Three years later Cody and I are still together. I have no more clarification or definition of us than I had at the beginning of this. Things are not the way they used to be. He's a great guy, but he still feels so far from what I expected. But now I can't remember what I expected. I don't know how you know if a relationship is the way it is simply because that's the natural process of how two people in love change or if you lost something completely necessary to happiness. I contend that there are moments when this makes sense to me. When I stop overthinking and just let it be. I hear so many philosophies on love and marriage and happiness. I don't know which ones I agree with. This is what I know: Cody is a good and decent person, Cody has a genuine heart, he's never done anything negative worth mentioning, and he claims he loves me. I sometimes wait for it to end. I brace myself for some catastrophic ending to him and me. I wonder if he loves me the way you're supposed to love the person you spend your life with. There must be something worth maintaining considering we've lasted this long. He is mine. I am his. For now. It's been one interesting experience regardless of what happens outside the utopia that is college. I don't want college to be over. However, even if I stayed, it wouldn't be the same. There's a time limit on something as cool as this. If it lasted forever, it wouldn't be worth missing. Missing something is part of the appeal I've learned. Everytime I don't think I care I realize I do. When I tell myself it wouldn't hurt, it does. When I try not to cry, I do. Maybe that's when you know it's love. When it hurts so bad, but you come crawling back each time."

The other night Cody and I went and looked at the new dorms at UA Fort Smith. We walked our 24 year old bodies into a world of freshmen. We snuck into a door that we didn't have the key to. We peered in windows of rooms we will never live in. We spent some time on a campus that is no longer our campus. As we drove away with the belltower shining through the moon roof, I realized it is over. College is over. Not because we graduated. Not because we have a degree. It's over because we're not 18 anymore. The next day I walked into the halls of Lavaca High School and taught kids because I am an adult who is married to the guy I always wanted who I never wanted to admit was the one I wanted. I occasionally have these moments where all I want is the way things were. It's annoying and useless and a waste of time. But it takes a while to walk far enough away to no longer know you can't go back. Walking around The Lions' Den the other night was a good indicator that college is the new high school. I have walked far enough to understand it is no longer mine. I realized as I drove away with Cody that I need to focus on the irresistible apects of my present. One day I will be holding one child in my exhausted arms with another tugging annoyingly on my sleeve and I will think back to the days when Cody and I sat around with our dogs and did just about whatever we wanted. I will reminisce and think fondly upon this right here. I need to live in the now and less in the once was.

I hope the freshmen of The Lions' Den love college as much as I did. And I hope one day they look back so longingly on their experience. And for now, I will keep on walking.

Hello, my name is Adulthood, Adulthood Prater.

I was (note the past tense) so very impressed with myself throughout this entire wedding process for not overanalyzing every tiny detail of every experience. I didn't get caught up in the "I'm getting so old, my life is spinning out of control game" that I often times find myself in during times of immense change. I even handled the post-wedding reality set-in. I was very fortunate to have a summer as an educator to get married in that allowed the weeks after June 19th to be spent like Cody and I were 18 again. We watched movies all night, slept til noon, and did as little as we possibly could. Life for the past 6 weeksish has been pretty sweet.

However, as all times of stress free existence do, my summer of leisure has come to a screeching halt. I have found myself thrown into the tornado of "I'm old." I am currently mid-spin, eye of the storm (yes, I know that's a hurricane reference), hunker down in the bathtub with the mattress on top of you mode. I am overwhelmed.

This all began to strike me about the time I decided to turn 24 years old. Cody and I had some friends over for a birthday/housewarming celebration. We had a great time. Everything went well. But at some point during the night, I looked around the living room of my home filled with my couple friends (once you get old, you only hang out with couples) made eye contact with my husband smiled at my fur children and sipped my glass of wine and realized this isn't 2004 anymore.

My birthday was only the beginning of my turmoil. Here recently I have also been forced to go back to work. As a teacher I am faced with the perpetual label of Mrs. _______ or Coach ________ at all times. Even when students are not around, teachers still have a hard time socializing like the rest of Americans who call each other by their first names. The past few days I have been bombarded with "Hey, Coach Schro...oh wait, it's not Schrodt anymore. What is it now?" comments. I have had my mail box relabeled in the teacher's lounge. The name by my classroom door says Prater instead of Schrodt. I was forced to complete an assignment in alphabetical order as a "P." I have had every username I have ever possessed reset and thus compiled of something Prater related. IT IS EVERYWHERE!!! It's almost laughable. One of the women who consider not changing their name has had the name change process completed for her. I am officially Coach Prater. I get it.

The whole process is so weird. I literally feel like I have no idea where my life has gone. I had a professor in college who used to always remark on how difficult it is to turn a year older as a teacher but to come to work every day to kids who are always 15. They don't get old. They move on and you are reloaded with another group of kids in the exact same place as the ones you had before. I am faced with the innocence of adolescence on a daily basis. I am faced with the youthfulness that I have finally realized I no longer have like I used to. I am married. I am not 22. I am no longer Schrodt. And I am a little bit lost.

I need a minute to breathe...

And then I was reminded that often times in the midst of chaotic Katy mode there is often a light at the end of the tunnel. Here recently I have been blessed with a resolution to a mess that I have been reliving for about 6 years now. Something that simply didn't go the way I wanted it to go has been resolved for all to enjoy, most importantly me. I have recently been reminded by the most unlikely of candidates that "everything happens for a reason." Oddly enough, that same tidbit of advice was given to me by the person involved in my self-inflicted mess 6 years ago, but I simply didn't listen. I wasn't old enough to understand. This experience of restitution could only be appreciated by 24 year old Katy...Schrodt.

Maybe we all get old. Maybe we don't appreciate our youth while we've got it (I know, I know, I'm not that old). Maybe we make decisions that haunt us for 6 years. And maybe, you only get the resolution that you need when you're at a point in your life when you can accept it and appreciate it. Maybe there is more good in growing up than I can understand right now. All I do understand is there a certain renewal to one's spirit when you finally reach a point of catharsis. And in all the drama of the Prater wedding experience I have found comfort in something that happened to Katy Schrodt. Therefore, as Katy Prater I will carry forward my little nugget of wisdom I have received. Regardless of age or name, there are some good things that cannot be denied.

"when it's good, it'll feel like it should." - John Mayer