Deja Vu

Today's Thoughts...

So I’ve started teaching again.

I said, I’ve started teaching again!

This is the part where smoke and thunder fills the sky and some unseen voice tells me my destiny is doom, doom, DOOM! You know? The booming voice of fate that informs me that I have made the fatal error and—gasp—remained in stasis dare I say for another semester? Right. Nada. Didn’t hear a word from the skies.
What I did hear this week, however, was the raucous applauding and cheering as I walked into a classroom of students I had never met; the giddy giggles and explosions of AJAAAAAARN! as I pass through the halls; and the gentle murmur of approval from my fellow faculty colleagues. Man, it feels good to be home.

As it is, I sacrificed the chance to flee back to the Atlantic and a world of sticky oil spills and stickier health care bills. I stayed. I stayed. And it feels good. I miss my family a TON. My little brother, well not so little I guess at sixteen with a mustache and muscles to boot, finally got his first summer job selling hotdogs and concessions at the baseball stadium. I feel like a Mommy missing her kid’s first day of school. One of my best friends just graduated, countless pictures of her beaming in her cap and gown all over Facebook. I missed the jolly old year-numero-uno Reunions for my graduating class. A lot of things are happening at home, but even more things are happening inside of me right here.
Watching the newbies come in—teachers fresh off the boat, so to speak, with eager eyes and broad smiles ready to soak up life in the sun on the sands of Thai shores—I suddenly feel old. Correction, I feel ancient.

Some huge stone has been placed upon my back and suddenly, I buckle under its massive weight. I am a year out. I am a year out with no career or grad school plans, at least not remotely concrete ones, in sight. Did I make the wrong decision to escape to a land of coconuts and smiles? Should I be squeezing my way behind a desk at a 9-5 or cramming the contents of classic literature or political theory in the hallowed halls of an institute of higher higher education? I made this choice and now… I’m coping with all the particles that come with living with it.

I am happy. I am also intermittently lonely, no matter how many incredible friends I surround myself with. I love teaching. I also feel unfulfilled at times when I’d rather be measuring out spike tape on a stage than recording attendance in a class. I don’t know if I made the right decision. What is right anyway? Right now? Right not left. Righteous minded. Right is relative. I made a decision and I think it was a good decision and at the moment I am just waiting to see, thank you very much. What does autumn hold as the green green banana leaves change…well… remain their perky green? Your guess is as good as mine. But right now, for the moment, I think here is a good place to be.