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.
No comments:
Post a Comment