soneto xvii de mi vida.

I had a weird flashback tonight in class. Dr. M was talking about teachers we had in the past who prepared us for exams/tests and gave us assessments directly related to what we had learned.

Even though British Literature II was not my favorite class in college due to Professor I’s crazy teaching antics, his assessments were incredibly fair.
I was thinking about how he gave us three essay topics that we were to prepare for but only one of which we would actually be writing on for our essay exam.
It led me to think about how the topic we wrote on was chosen.
professor I wanted to make sure that it was chosen as randomly as possible… assuring us that it would be so as he sipped out of his coffee cup, rumored to not be full of coffee.

Each student in class had a number next to our name in the grading book. So he picked a number. I don’t remember what number. Say, three. Then he had person #3 pick another number. Maybe they said eight. I’m not sure.
And person #8 was e. Professor I said, “Okay, e, pick a number. That’s the person that gets to pick the essay topic out of the hat.” He picked some number in the twenties. It was me. I was the number.

Everyone laughed because e and I talked constantly, walked to and from class together, probably thought we were together. What are the "odds?" ha.
One usually thinks of random number calling as being unrelated, random in every sense of the word, and yet everyone saw the silliness and irony of Professor I’s random essay choosing “system.”

A was in that class. She was one of the people who somewhat raised her eyebrows when Professor I said my name as being “the” number. She always told me that me and e were fated to be together, and gave little Finnish sayings to validate her opinion. If I had known what would ensue over the following six months, I might have thrown up on the spot. But I didn’t. I laughed with everyone else.

I don’t know why that part of things came up tonight.

As I’ve dealt with singleness and thought about past and current hurts, it’s been good to remember that whatever I wanted so badly in the past, no matter how much it hurt to let it go, I did eventually let it go.
In my current state, tonight in class, when all of this flooded into my head, I thought, “This too shall pass.”

I don’t have to grow cold in order to watch what I think I want drift away. I don’t even have to mope around. I can. And I probably will. But there was a lot of freedom in recalling my former admiration and affection for e. And the wide eyes we both had at the irony of the number he picked being mine. It makes me remember the excitement of the idea of fate and that initial and lingering attraction to another person. That feeling that it’s perfectly okay to be silly and to feel silly.

Sure, it makes me sad. I don’t even really like talking about it. And it really angered me the other night when someone brought him up. Maybe he thinks it’s odd that it still bothers me. I don’t feel hurt from it, but past wounds still ache when prodded by the wrong person.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the type of environment I want to create for my students to learn. I keep going back to the same word: value.
I want my students to feel valued by me. I want them to know without a doubt that I am on their side and that I know that they can succeed in learning English.

Every time I am called Teacher or Maestra, my heart gets bigger. It’s amazing. It’s an honor to be called those words. It helps me know that they value me.

And that’s where my wounds so often come from. A sense of feeling devalued by another person. It should never happen. But it does.

One of my favorite poems says,
“Te amo sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde.”
(I love you without knowing how, or when, or where)

And I would have to add,
“Te olvido sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde.”
(I forget you without knowing how, or when, or where)

Because it seems that it is in the forgetting, or rather, the decision to not dwell, the moving on, that I find the strength to find and recognize value and being valued and valuing others and all what life is. And that, is healing.

...

amy, this is mainly for you. for a lot of different reasons. but mostly because you're my only blog follower. (:

i'm lying here in my bed and i'm really sad. you know why. i'm exhausted by this inward battle but don't know how to win it. it's so easy yet the hardest thing. my mind goes crazy and i just want to disappear.
the only thing that repeats in my head is, "i need jesus. i need jesus. i need jesus." over and over and over again.
and what does that even mean?
i ask that a lot lately.
'trust god.'
what does that mean?
or more, how does one make a decision to do that?

O Love that will not let me go...
why won't you let me go? why do you hold on?

i know he has marked me. the label that i most identify in the bible is somewhere in the old testament, probably in one of the prophet books, where is says something like, "you are mine." i think that is my special word with god. i am his. he looks at me and says, 'mine.'

and i try to do that with things i want in my life. i look at them and say, 'mine.' but they aren't mine. they're his, too.

i need jesus. yes. i do. but more than that. i need to want jesus more than anything else. holding nothing back.

i wish i could say that this realization makes me the sadness disappear. but although it sheds light, it's still there. it's like the poem on my wall which reads,

"I will complain, yet praise,
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sowre-sweet dayes,
I will lament, and love."

i don't know how to be strong. and intellectually i know, "when i am weak, he is strong." but i need to know this in my heart and believe it. and i want to. and i hope it happens. because, i can't.

an end of the year poem.

my dear friend Lindsay challenged me to write a poem summarizing 2008... she gave me some rules:
1. be detailed (I tried)
2. Make it poetic it wording (tried, I'm not great at this...if I pay too much attention, then I go crazy)
3. repeat "no time to wait, here's to 2008" throughout the poem (I kinda did this)

here is what I came up with....

1 January 1, 2008
P.F. Changs I wish I hadn’t ate
This situation I did create
I should have resolved to just lose weight, but alas,
No time to wait, here is to dear old 2008

2 News about March brought me the most tears yet
The ambush of sadness I will never forget
I hate that she was so alone, though I can relate
But knowing my Father will never forsake
Grieving doesn’t wait, which is what happened in 2008

3 I teach school and for April I await
To learn about E.S.L. is my fate
I get to travel to N.Y.C.
Foreshadowing, I hope, my future degree
Not to restate but it sure doesn’t wait, I’m telling the story of 2008

4 May comes and my babies finish KK
Being their teacher made all of my days
But it was time for me to go away
So I left Memphis for the Sunshine State
Only the beginning of my moves in 2008

5 In July, a monster I do meet
Dealing with Bridezilla was a huge feat
The wedding over, surely did elate
And future decisions I did debate

6 August came and to D.C. I went
Hoping for awhile to feet content
No big job came and I wondered what that meant
My soul, in its lonely state, did torment

7 Much of the time I held in my tears
To let them out, I thought, might let win my fears
Instead I wrote letters, from my heart I was straight
Asking the Lord, how long must I wait?

8 Friendships went more than they came
I often wonder how certain ones remain
I feel stuck opening up for fear that they’ll leave
Unable to be grateful for the time I do receive

9 Vulnerability, I hear, is risky but worth it
But deep within my heart it is hard for me to do it
Stability, security, I want to be fixed
But in one spot for now I cannot exist

10 October brings me “home” to teach
Enabling my mind once again to reach
That place where I find joy and being with people, innate
I wonder if soon my previous notions will reinstate
A welcome relief, here in 2008

11 My birthday month, twenty-four seems so old
Although waiting for so so much to unfold
Dad comes to visit, Mom shows up, too, and tightly I hold
As if to remember what my heart feels like not cold
Their coming to see me is their best surprise to date
With Thanksgiving I learn that to Wheaton I will go, and on time, not late
Which leaves us less time to wait, as we near the finish of 2008

12 December is here and sadness remains
Sometimes I cannot shake the pain that flows through my veins
I look to the future and try to shed the past
But worry that my efforts will not long last
2009, I only hope can bring
More love for a Savior for whom I will cling
I cannot make promises for what my actions will dictate
Only that there is no more time to wait, for the end has come for 2008