Being Mrs. Doubtfire

Today was the first day back to teaching, and it was a whirlwind of being properly dressed, arriving on time, giving information out (but not too much today), juggling a thousand questions that all seem to be asked at once, making a giant mess of papers on my desk and following little men around with a constant outpour of words flowing from my lips.

Things like:

“Do you have your agenda?”

“Are you reading?”

“WHAT are you READING?!”

“What did you do over break?”

“Can you please throw your lunch wrappers away before you switch classes? I am not yo maid”

“No parkour inside the classroom. Get up off the wall….”

  When I have my own kids, I will let them jump around like monkeys sometimes if they need to. Sometimes I let my school kids jump around like monkeys, but it has to be strictly monitored-there are many of them, after all. Could be dangerous.

There is only one of me, however, so I allow myself to jump around like a monkey sometimes.

No monkey jumping today though. It’s a brand new, shiny semester, which means it is time to start things off on the right foot. Time to lay down the law.

That being said, I get annoyed with myself being so rule-oriented at school because it’s not really a natural part of my personality.  

I am reminded of one of my all-time favorite movies,a cinematic epic of the highest achievement…

Mrs. Doubtfire.

 Please tell me you’ve seen it? If you haven’t, here’s the sum up.

Daniel Hillard loves his kids and just wants to play. However, after his childlike approach to parenthood (and marriage) finally goes too far, he becomes separated from his kids by an uncomfortable divorce. 

He must put on the wig, he must put on the dress. He must assume the  general -like persona of a no-nonsense British nanny. 

He must become “Mrs. Doubtfire,”  his own  kids’ new nanny. 

This allows Daniel to spend some much-needed time with his children. However, he knows that his previous methods of parenting won’t cut it by Mrs. Doubtfire standards,so he must learn how to properly look after his children (as well as himself!)

By the end of the film, Daniel has managed to reconcile both sides of himself, becoming at once the fun-loving dad as well as a pulled-together adult. 

I'm not sure how applicable this is to everyone working in a kid-focused workplace, but for me, here's how it applies.

Sometimes I feel an incredible urge to be a beginning-of-the-movie Daniel Hillard (though I rein it in usually).

 Most of the time, I find myself to be more like a Daniel Hillard watching from behind the sterner mask of Mrs. Doubtfire (but loose enough to dance like crazy with the vacuum-cleaner).

See here if you don't know what I mean by that:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuqYNx8zaXM

Sometimes I am the Daniel Hillard at the end of the movie, having found my inner child and sensible adult working together in perfect synchrony.  I guess that’s the goal of working with kids, that's what you really want.

Except for, you know, the weird cross-dressing, don’t-tell- your- kids- it’s –really- you- stuff. 

I think Robin Williams is really the only one who can pull that off without coming off as a complete creeper.

Yeah, Dane won't let me watch that movie any more times.

Winter Magic

Fog drifts through the black toothpick trees outside until it’s impossible to see where they begin to grow up from the ground and where they taper off into the sky. 
The marble-colored fog has a slightly blueish hue, a reflection of the brilliant twilight above.
I inhale deeply and note the scent that comes this kind of night, the sharp metallic smell of ice edged with smoke.

I am glad leave the porch and return to the sitting room, to curl up in an armchair by the roaring fire with my book. Through the window, I watch the bitter cold creep into the woods.  I am a soldier armed for battle, secure in my refuge, anticipating that mystical event that has been rumored to occur in wars of this nature..

 the white magic

-beautiful, intricate, delicate, powerful-

 Snow. 

Upon waking

100 days- Day 2

I have a lot of dreams with my mom in them that leave me waking up to confusion. In some dreams, everything is normal and she is just there, participating. Sometimes it is only that way until I realize, within it all, that it is unusual for her to be there.  I talk to her about this when it happens, and she just nods and gives me a sympathetic smile, “You’re right” she might say, or “I know.” Sometimes she hugs me tight and I can feel the soft warmness of her and smell her smell as I feel her arms around me and my face pressed into her shoulder.

She’s in my thoughts when I first wake up in the morning, not ready to open my eyes yet. I know if I open my eyes and see the framed picture of her sitting on my dresser, it is real.  It really happened.

There are mornings when I keep my eyes closed extra-long after waking, wanting to look at the dream, not the picture on the dresser.

100 words, 100 days

 I'm not promising clearcut topics or well-made points or great storytelling. I'm not even promising correct spelling! I just would like to give this 100 words a day thing a shot!

The CD “Celtic Tides: A Musical Odyssey” stood out among the 75 other Celtic CDs on the display rack at the antique store today.  It has a funky, hippy kind of cover with bright colors against a black backdrop. It was only $2. I imagined, for some reason, that all of the stuff in that particular section of the store (one of those places where people purchase stalls in which to display their wares) had belonged to an eccentric old man who had just passed away. He was of Irish descent and his relatives were rednecks who did not understand his Celtic jam nor tendency to collect random soundtracks such as the score from Ghostbusters, so they had brought the eclectic selection of music and labeled everything $2. Simple enough. 

 I just popped  in “Celtic Tides” , and it’s quite a jammer. It’s Celtic,( kind of), but also (kind of) techno, bluegrass and pop (judging only from the first track of course). Just now, my musical experience is made even more interesting by the fact that Dane has put on display, in the background, a muted documentary called “The Life of Mammals."  The combination makes for quite an interesting music video. 

 Dane does things like this, on purpose, very often.  I believe he is this way for a very simple reason.

 His brain is a mutant. 

However, his mutant brain clicks with mine and I believe that Dr. Seuss would take that to mean that I love him. On which point, Dr. Seuss would be correct.

I like this wickedly weird CD. To take matters further, I think I would have liked that old man, if indeed he ever existed.

Beautiful Lengths Part 2

For those of you who read my blog and read my post about Beautiful Lengths a few months ago, this is a part 2 of that post......

I did it! And it felt AWESOME!
Canvas Hair Studio in Gainesville, GA made the whole experience so much fun and I love my new 'do. Ultimately, I was able to donate between 10 and 11 inches.
Having not had short hair in awhile (and hair this short maybe never), I'm really enjoying how fun and easy it is to style. It feels great and sassy and retro. Here are some pics.

Before

After....

For those of you who are thinking about doing this, I definitely recommend it!

Here's my favorite thing about being able to do such simple thing for someone.

Sure it makes a difference for a woman in a physical way, but also makes a difference in an emotional way. Stepping out of your comfort zone to do something completely voluntary for a stranger makes a statement about our interconnectedness as people. A statement that shows us what we all have in common.

It says, "Yeah, life sucks sometimes. But Love doesn't suck. Love is there for you. Life is going to be awful sometimes, really really awful-that's the Fall.  In the midst of those times, Love is going to be the thing that pulls you out of the gutter-that's the Redemption."

Those are two things that I believe every person has or will experience. 

Therefore, anything, even something small, that we can do to love others is the best possible use of our time.

I want to be better about that. It has made a world of difference for me to be blessed by the love of others during this last year of pain and grief. 

That love, that healing love in the midst of the sorrow,  is what I'm thankful for on this week of Thanksgiving.

John Green and Scarlett O'Hara: Grief and breakdowns

I love John Green's video blogs on YouTube. If you haven't watched any of them, you really should check them out-a glorious mixture of deep, nerdy and hilariously random.
 I also enjoy the ramblings of  Hank (his brother), but not nearly as much.

Having read all of John books, I have concluded the likelihood that his inner world, like mine, is an oddly cohesive balance:  joyful, romantic optimism with a melancholic twist- the grim, ever-present awareness of life's inevitable tragedy.

Most people probably wouldn't know about that second part for me, or at least they wouldn't have a year ago. It's always been there, but is not often percieved.  You wouldn't know this side of John Green either, from  most of his happy/hyper videos. If you read his books though, there it is.


I don't know if John is an INFP like I am, or if the link between this sort of personality is something else. Most people seem to be able to put the awareness of tragedy on the back burner, but I just can't. I never really have been able to, but since I lost my mom it has become impossible. It's makes you love people harder, and it's also harder to love people.

The balancing  act seems to lie in the establishment of small  "forevers"  in little moments and acceptance  that others will inevitably make a big impact on us.
 "Some infinities are bigger than other infinities" are the words spoken by Augustus Waters in Green's The Fault in Our Stars.  Words from one child cancer patient to the girl that he loves, whose diagnosis is terminal.

I know. I know. It sounds too morbid, but really, it's not. The Fault in Our Stars had me crying on one page and laughing hysterically on another page. It's really just all about that balance that you have to find. That balance  between joy and tragedy. It is a balance which screams at my psyche all the time. It's a balance which was turned into a beautiful story by John Green, and that's part of why I like him so much.

Ok, ok, so all of that is to say that I like John Green. I relate to him. Sure, he's smarter than me, wittier, more eloquent, more productive, but we share a personality with a similar dichotomy . Hey, I guess that's how a lot of people pick their heroes- "You are like me, but way cooler!"

Here's where I am going to be selfish and whiny. Forgive me.

 Talking about John Green- I just watched one of his videos called "Perspective" which made some really important comments about how future you can' t always see how negative things in your past would come impact you positively. John talks about how, when he was 24, he had a breakdown after his girlfriend left and he was searching for meaning and everything. He lived on a diet of Sprite until he got really sick and he went home to his parents to get his head on straight. He started writing the book, Looking for Alaska (which resulted ultimately in his current success).

However, the more I got to thinking about it, the more this one little detail started nagging me. John was 24. I am currently 24. John got sad, and stopped taking care of himself. Others took care of him. He got to quit the real world for awhile, because it was too hard, and he couldn't go anymore.He was too tired.

I've seen this happen a lot.

I am kind of jealous because I can't do that.

Here's the thing: I know a great deal people who have had breakdowns in their twenties: people I respect and love. I've never judged them for it, because life is rough. I've been close myself. I was close once in highschool when I experienced my first breakup. I was close once during my extremely challenging senior year, when I was taking 23 credit hours, working on my senior thesis, and missing my wonderful long-distance boyfriend. I saw others quit for awhile, go home. While I didn't blame them, I was always proud that I never had to use my "get out of jail" card. I could have quit, you see. I would have been ok. I wouldn't have starved or died or been shunned if I had.
In the back of my mind, I always knew that if I did ever crash and burn, my parents (like John's did) would pick up the pieces and help me get back together again. I knew that, but I didn't crash. The twenties are for exploration, a lot of people say. Young adulthood, where it's ok to mess up.

I made it through a challenging college in four years with honors. I  made it through over a year of long distance heartache and married the man of my dreams. I found a satisfying job right after college. All before the age of 23. I was happy. And yes, a bit proud. I felt so successful at life. But definitely not done-so much more to do.

Then the past year: a whirlwind of love, stress, pain, grief and sorrow. I miss my mom, one of my best friends, so much. I am left with so many new questions and dreams and pains. I am so tired, and  I ache with a very personal kind of sadness that it seems no one else can understand.
  ("There are many kinds of love, but never the same love twice."-F.Scott Fitzgerald).  Often, I think that mom would understand, because she's most like me of any person that I ever met. But then she's not here to understand, which makes it all the harder.

I get up every morning and go to work. I act happy. I teach. I am happy sometimes. I push all these feelings aside so I can function. I run errands, cook, talk to friends, hang out with Dane and my dad, read, watch TV.   I am exhausted from life. But even more, I am so exhausted from holding it in-the grief that sneaks into quiet moments and makes my hurt. Hard to breath.

Night-time is the worst. Every night the images keep coming and my heart seems to break all over again.

If ever there was a time when I would breakdown, it would be now. I'm a feeler. Always have been. I feel things in such a big way that it would be easy to let them take me over. So easy. A breakdown would be so easy.

But if I ever had a "break down" card, it is gone now. It went away with my acceptance of all the responsibilities of which I was so proud. I have an education, a job, bills to pay, a loving family who needs me to be ok. If this is the time to explore and make mistakes, I wonder why I am not allowed to be a mistake for a little while.  Inside, I am the opposite of okay. How do I keep seeming okay to people? Why do I have to? The jealous teenager in me sees others getting a break over other things and is crying out, "This is so not fair!"


I don't have a back up plan. We don't have money to fall back on if I couldn't get up and work in the morning. I don't have my mom to hug me or say,  "Just always know that you can come home if you need to."  It seems that being screwed up or having a breakdown is not a luxury that everyone can afford. I mean I wish I could. I really really do. Because inside that's how it is sometimes, and keeping up the facade is wearing me out.

It was like at the memorial service for mom. So many people came. I didn't want to talk to all those people. It was actually the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to be alone and scream and cry. But the people came to share their hearts and it was my responsibility to hear them for my mom.


Then I think about Scarlett O' Hara, (about whom I have very mixed feelings). Southern icon of charm, beauty and guile, Scarlett is not the kind of girl I would want to hang out with. She's always flattering her way into the most advantageous heart that she can, and she doesn't really care who she takes out in the process.

However, she went through some tough shit.
She was raised in all the luxury that the South could afford, wanting for nothing. You would expect that coming home to Tera to find her home mutilated, mother gone, and father crazy would have made her give up, but it didn't. She knew she was the only one who could keep things going, so she just kept going. She never rested, never stopped.

I don't necessarily want to be like Scarlett O'Hara, because for the most part I find her quite disturbing, but I do admire her endurance. It is encouraging to the position I find myself in right now, where having a breakdown is not a luxury I can afford.

Then I think about people who have problems which are not first-world, and I feel ashamed of my petty longing for a break.
.... People who have lost almost entire families to starvation or disease and are just trying to survive from day to day. It's a whole new perspective entirely.

I'm sorry for the tremendous length and rambling nature of this post, and I don't really expect many people to read it. I was just going to journal it, but I thought that others sure have had similar thoughts at some point and maybe it would do some good to post it.
 I'm just feeling kind of run-down lately. And I'm thinking of all the times I could have broken down but didn't- how proud I felt. Now I'm not to proud to admit that I am seriously struggling, but the breakdown card is gone. Again, first world problems.