Sleep is for the WEEK!

ONE WEEK! That's all that's left of my stay here in my apartment. And it's been overwhelming juggling the last week of school with moving, to say the least! As I type this, I'm actually sitting on the floor at my coffee table, because I've already gotten rid of my couch! My brother, Brad, is a freshman at USI and he needed it more than I did- plus it's one less thing to move! I should really be packing my kitchen tonight, but the combination of the internet, TV, and the sound of rain is distracting me. Normal sleeping hours are probably going to elude me from now til Friday...

I mostly wanted to blog because I've been treated so nicely at school lately! Today, as one example, involved having a surprise card/gift on my desk this morning from a parent, getting a card from one of my students, and another one from a student I had last year! It's hard to be aware of the impact you're having on a child at the moments in which it is happening...each day alone in the school year as isolated incidents do not always seem like they're making a difference, but when you combine them over the course of 180 days you start to realize how big a part of their lives you are! I love my students, and my students love me. It doesn't really get much better than that.

Stay tuned...when I have more time the Sage of Damien is next on the list. Trust me, you don't want to miss this story!

life in boxes

"Perhaps if we never veered off course, we wouldn't fall in love, or have babies, or be who we are. After all, seasons change. So do cities. People come into your life and people go. But it's comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart. And if you're very lucky, a plane ride away."

  

Packing reminds me of fashion. You get dressed differently for all kinds of different occasions; work, weddings, funerals, to go the mailbox, pick up some milk, crawl into bed...same with packing.  And I have an ridiculously difficult time doing both of these everyday tasks. Here is the difference- I LOVEloveLOVE finding new outfits, but I DESPISE packing. Ironically, this is one trip that I actually don't have to decide what to take! Everything's going! But. There is something about putting your life into boxes (the lucky ones who make it to the next level) and trash bags (for the corpses of what used to be considered stylish/cool/necessary) that truly makes a person think deeply.

For me, packing is like putting the punctuation on one sentence and a capital letter on the next. There is the last sentence, it is what it is. And here comes another one, yet to be written or spoken. And all that I keep thinking to myself is, In 13 days I will never be in this spot in this apartment in this city ever again. Ever. I might not see some of the people I see every single day ever again. Ever. And I am positive that I won't BE the same person as I am right now. Ever again.

Exciting, exhilarating, liberating, slightly scary. But the one thing I know is that change is inevitable. And so I choose to decide what changes I want, instead of waiting for them to happen to me. More importantly, with no regrets.