Basket of Emotions

The basket is beginning to fill up. I got the most monumental news I'd received in my entire life yesterday. I was offered the opportunity to move to a brand new city, where I know no-one and teach special education in an risk-school. I'm excited, terrified, sad, grateful, conflicted....

I've always wished I was one of those stoic people who show no emotion. The ones that drive me crazy because I'm often so perplexed at how to read them. I think these people are generally boring, but if I was this person I would not think I was boring. I would not such a roller coaster right now. I would also be essentially an entirely different person. It is my emotional side that draws me to all the good things I've ever done and wonderful people I've ever loved. It is my emotional side that makes me good at caring for people, encouraging people... I have, on less confident days, and in less freeing experiences, wished that this side of me would become more quieted by my logical side. As I've grown, I've realized that they are both integral parts of my being and I would be incomplete if either changed. Raw emotion without regulation or understanding can be dangerous, but when I use the two together, I am strong and able to make a difference.

The last two years seem to have flown by and looking back I sometimes feel that this is when my distaste of my emotional side started. I then realize that this is when my emotional side was taxed and stretched just a little to far. This has a been a period of breaking down walls and insecurities to allow me to build back up. A time of great challenges and growth. Growing pains if you will.

I'm not 100% what my decision will be, but I'm ready to continue growing stronger as I try to help put more good in the world than I take away. What ever the next step is, I'm advancing with simplicity with this single philosophy leading the way- pouring positivity into the world. I know I sound naively optimistic, much like my younger self, but this is the attitude needed to get through. This is the attitude that drove my passions and will drive them until my time is up.

Thanks to everyone who has taught me to spread joy because you have given me pieces of your joy and spread them to others as well.

Anticipation

On first thought I wanted to name this post anxiety, but for more glamorous marketing I chose anticipation (the socially acceptable cousin to anxiety). 

I'm sitting my fairly small bedroom (my queen size bed takes up about 90% of the room). This room has been my solace since August of last year. It has been my sanctuary, despite its somewhat lacking size. It has calm lighting and soft colors and is free of clutter or decoration. It is simple and it is a retreat. In this room I left behind the over sized antique room of my old home. The home that contained two very monumental yet powerfully shaking years of my life. A home rich with age in this world but also rich with age in my life. Age meaning that I aged in that room and felt bitter sweet about leaving the reminder behind and moving to my current location.

Now back to what I'm doing in this small bedroom that is creating its new memories as I do more soul searching and living in these new four walls. I'm laying in my bed, knowing that I will not rest tonight because I'm waiting on some important news. News about a new opportunity in my life. An opportunity to leave the last three years behind (in physical sense, but never in my heart and mind). I applied to teach for a program that goes into at risk areas. This would mean leaving my current world and all the people in my office I've grown to love. More importantly, this would mean leaving the cases that I've poured the better portion of 2 years into and becoming a part of the cyclical problem with child welfare. I feel as if I'd essentially be giving up on one aspect of child welfare to pursue one that I feel may be more alligned with my heart and more conducive to my sanity...

I'm left in utter anticipation... I'm attempting to calm my nerves with Chamomile tea and David Gray. This is helping but leaving me slightly depressed. I'm reminded that even if I am accepted into this opportunity, I will still have to leave a life behind and leave some very important people behind. Potentially everyone in my current life could be 2000 miles away in less than a season. This thought leaves me with a barrel  of emotions. A barrel of emotions I can't even begin to sort out at this time. I'm going with the philosophy that I will take things one step at a time. For my brain, this is nearly impossible. I'm of the disposition that I am constantly planning and anticipating and this is how I've always thought I've survived, yet I'm beginning to wonder if it is what has held me back.

Just writing this all out, I feel a little more calm, and yet only grazing the surface of the emotional basket that lies ahead. David Gray seems to fit the mood most perfectly. Lyrics always capture my emotions more clearly than anything I can every expunge through my own lips (or fingers in this case). Ironically the songs Freedom and Fugitive portray very different meanings. Fugitive makes me feel inclined to run towards the freedoms of new opportunity while Freedom leaves me back in the feelings of loss that I am anticipating if this choice becomes available. Maybe I'm just hopelessly looking for someone like David Gray to sweep me up, Sail Away With Me, and help all this confusion stop. If only life were a romantic comedy (I'm told that is why women are so screwed up and I'm beginning to feel this may have much truth).