The Start of Another Year

I wanted to write a nice reflective piece about how the past year has been one of significant evolution. I wanted to write this eloquent piece on the anniversary of my moving back to Tullahoma, and talk about all of the events.

Then I ended up with a 103.8 fever, so I decided on Plan B...

This past week, I ended up with some sort of illness.  Over the years, I have really stopped trying to pinpoint exactly what I have each time (mostly because it will end up driving me mad). I don't know if I can remember being so miserable in my life (which really says a lot when you know about the level of daily pain I have).  I felt delirious from fever, everything in my body hurt at a level I had never felt, and I couldn't swallow. Even drinking small amounts of fluids caused me tremendous pain.

I continued to go to work, because I knew I needed to hear what was going on before school started.  I also knew I am a single parent, and can't afford to give up sick days unless absolutely necessary.  So, I minimized my risk at work, decided not to lick anyone for those days, and sat through meetings while I shivered.

Now that I made it through the week and am feeling somewhat normal, I can get back to my original intention.  I wanted to look back over this year...

I remember a little over a year ago: I packed up my necessary belongings, two children and a dog, and moved to Tullahoma.  The car overheated on the way, and I wondered if I was going to make it to my parents' house in one piece.  I was moving in about twelve hours before starting my new job, and took enough clothing and personal items to last us a few weeks.  We would be moving the remainder of the house two weeks later.  

Well, the two weeks turned into a month, and eventually we just wanted to get everything to Tullahoma.  It's hard to "start over" when everything happens in stuck stages.  What I mean is that the moment of me driving down the road toward Tullahoma- THAT should have been starting over.  But I knew I was in limbo until I had my belongings.  

Then fighting moving companies and packing up everything by hand (and with the help of incredible neighbors and family!).  I remember finally driving away from the old house and FINALLY realizing I never had to go back to that place... There were a lot of rough memories there, and it was a great feeling to let go.

A few months later, the divorce was final. Another pivotal moment when I walked out of the courthouse and realized that I was finally free.  I had done a lot on my own for quite some time.  But I was finally ON MY OWN.  Some people feel terrified after a divorce is final.  I felt liberated...

And it was after this time, I decided to put this project into full-force.  I had a list floating around in my head, but it took the divorce being over for me to realize my life was ultimately up to me now.  I had two children to care for, but I didn't have anyone to answer to.  I didn't have anyone to tell me that a place was "too far," or an idea was "too crazy," or we didn't "have time" to try something.  There were no more excuses.

And so I began this journey. It really had everything to do with me--what I wanted, what I needed, and what would heal my soul.  There was an awful lot of hurt that had been piling from years of events, and I needed time to sift.  This really had little to do with the divorce, and more to do with recovering from my injury.  I realized I didn't have time to deal with the injury because I was enduring a miserable existence at that time.  I believe the brain is an awesome tool, and it only lets you deal with little bits of information at a time.  If you had to deal with the reality all at once, you would most certainly go crazy.

I didn't have the advantage of having a fully-functioning brain.  

So, I had a flood.

And I felt like I went crazy.  Never in front of others, and it was never noticed.  I just felt like who I was slipped away and returned frequently.  I am not sure who was there, filling the void, during all the other times. I know my eyes looked vacant often, and I imagine those were the times my soul attempted a vacation.

I try to be optimistic and enthusiastic on here. I. try.

Let me say briefly: recovering from a brain injury can be maddening.  There are days three years later that I don't remember a connection I have with someone.  I wake up and don't remember that I love this person? I can stand next to someone, and have to question my exact feelings, because my mind has to remind me how I am supposed to feel. It isn't depression or any sort of mental flatness.  I can't remember who I am connected to and who I am not.

This doesn't happen often, so I hope people don't read that and think I am on the edge of doom here...

But it happens enough to make me very afraid.

And the other part that has been hard? The recovery of my muscles.  For every two months forward, it's one to three months back. I have been working and training, and then resting and moving again.  I wonder if my training did any good, since I ended up with two surgeries and one leg that will never be the same.  In fact, the surgeon is now referring me to a manager for the pain, because a resulting condition from the surgery has no cure.  As long as I have the condition, I will have the miserable agony.  And I will have the miserable condition forever.  Fan-freakin'-tastic...

I do have to pick myself up out of this hole now and focus on the positive of the year.  Any more of the miserable, and I could be stuck for quite a long time...

In the winter, I did meet a most fantastic man.  I will say I was skeptical of the idea of connecting with someone again.  I had an almost analytical approach to dating, and tried to sell myself on all of the reasons I didn't really even need to worry about finding someone.  The reality: penguins have it figured out. They find a mate, and stick with them.  It's better for their physical well-being, emotional security, and sanity.  Being a pair and having a bond with someone is incredibly important.  I get it now.

So, through these months, life has seemed to evolve for Tom and me. I have pushed through these goals, we have taken a lot of walks, had a lot of talks, and tried briefly to solve some of the world's problems.  I appreciate that he endures my enthusiasm for many topics, that he encourages my ideas, and is patient on the days I am feeling rough. I will say that last part was the major reason I really thought about not dating for a long time.  I know I was in pretty bad shape after the accident.  I know it will never be that bad again, but I also never want to be a burden like that for someone.  

I know that none of us can control what will happen in life.  If something happened to him, I would of course do what I needed to do to care for him, and not think much of it.  I guess it was a lot for me to expect someone to do the same.  I'm not sure why, and a therapist would probably have a field day with that revelation...

In a little over 100 days, I will turn 30.  That really doesn't seem like a lot once I write that number.  I still have quite a few projects to mark off the list before the big day.  It seems that life has changed drastically in the past year, and there are many more memories to make in the next hundred days. 

And as some sort of evil cosmic joke, I see a Twilight movie is being released on my birthday... So, there are people with tickers on their Facebook statuses, counting down the days to my birthday... with a wimpy vampire's face next to the number...

Happy birthday to me... :-P

Update...

I realized earlier this evening that I had not posted my progress in a while.  I actually hadn't posted anything in a while...  I guess it's time for an update!

Surgery is really what put me into a funk. I wasn't thrilled that I would have an extended recovery, and I was really on eggshells until I went to get my post-op ultrasound and had a chance to look at the progress.  This surgery was supposed to free me, and I was not happy that my recovery was going to take longer than expected (since it has been a THREE year process!).

Well, it will be at least three more months before I get some real progress. I have some major swelling left over, but it's supposed to resolve soon.  I am walking daily, and this helps to get everything moving.

I am happy to announce that I am on my way to completing another mission: to learn website design!

I have been walking, talking, and such with a friend, Tom. He works on computer programming for a living, so he has given me a lesson and some pointers on how to layout a website beyond the templates that blogger gives.  I am not saying I want to be an expert in the area- it was just something I always wondered about.  I want to work on creating a site to link my writings, this blog, and some other projects. I will call this mission a near-success, with some actual application meeting my goal. 

The walking has also helped get me moving to get back into training.  I am really not certain what I need to do for my goal to run a 10K.  I know I just need to keep moving and wait to see what happens.  I have little control over anything other than helping myself, and I will do my best.  At the next doctor's appt, I will reevaluate my goal.

I have my stack of books primed and ready for summer break. I am disappointed that I didn't get to read more in the past few months.  Life has kept me extra busy, and I know for the next three weeks I will be treading water.  It is nice to know there is a stack of books that will be waiting for me once I get a break. :-)

I am going to work on arranging the fish catch, and I need to schedule my hot air balloon ride.  I am ready to get out and do those things, now that I am somewhat mobile.

These past two weeks have been incredibly calming.  I have been able to focus on what I need to do, I have been more productive, and I can see that my energy has increased.  It is funny how waves of peace and calm can move through your life.  I really think you don't realize how wonderful it is until you have gone through a storm.  I like the structure and order and calm of my environment, because it was not like that a year ago.  I like having my life back, and I am excited to look at the future.

My daughter's third birthday was Friday, and I thought back over these past three years.  It's been a rough ride, and I wonder at times how I survived.  She has been an incredible presence in my life, and I feel like she was sent to save me.  The other morning I woke up and wrote something for her birthday.  At first I didn't feel like sharing, but it seems like a pretty vital message in the whole scheme of things.

 These Three Years

I waited for my life to change again.

Had enough with change,

and was frankly sick of it all.

Little did I know,

change had just begun.

It would consume me.

My savior-my lifeline

would soon be born.

She was the hope I had dreamed of,

and knew she would rescue me.

She is the spirit of everything

I could ever hope to be.

Everyone says she is my shadow,

my likeness.

As time has moved on,

hair has grown longer,

young faces are older.

Lessons were learned,

both mother and daughter.

My saving grace has walked

beside me through these years.

Through illness, injury, and desertion-

her trusting eyes,

her comforting stroke of my hair,

as I hold her against me at night.

A creature creeps into my room

in early morning.

A whisper:

             "Don't worry Mommy, I'll save you."

My reply:

            "You already have."

Applied Ethics and Pedometers

This might be the strangest post for me to write.  I guess it is strange because I am not comfortable going to bed without the answers to something.  Don't get me wrong--I have very little answers to anything in my own life.  In my job, I try to have some sense of direction and a clear plan (or at least try really hard to fake it).

What does this have to do with my "15 Before 30" project? Good question.  One of my goals is to run a 10K race.  Through this journey, I have begun training and running.  I talked with the Director of Coordinated School Health Programs, and ended up developing a school-wide Walk Across Tennessee program for the students.  We had overwhelming participation on opening day; so much so that we had to postpone kickoff a few days so that we could overnight some more pedometers.

There are students that have been following my "milestone crisis" project, and have been motivated to set goals.  In addition to the walking program, I sent out a feeler for a running group.  Our thought was that even if a few were interested, a cross country team might be formed.  Well, there are 48 students that are interested in running!!!  The only problem this presents is that I am only one person... and I don't even run terribly fast.  I do love running, and I love their enthusiasm. So, I will make do with whatever I can do to make them succeed.

Now, this is where the title comes in, and where my dilemma surfaces.  When designing this program, I knew that the basic pedometers leave a lot of room for cheating.  The reality is that they measure pretty slight movements, so anyone could sit and shake the pedometers, and end up with thousands of extra steps.  I am not saying I am Mother Teresa, but I do try to live to a pretty high moral standard.  When creating the rule sheet, I talked about integrity and morality, but tried to give the students some freedom and responsibility.

I was approached by a concerned student about two hours after the first wave of pedometers had been distributed.  He told me that he ran four miles during gym class, and was pretty proud of his accomplishments (as was I!).  He went on to tell me he had witnessed a few students that were sedentary, and were shaking their pedometers to register extra steps.  He vented his frustration that he was working hard to make himself healthier (and competing for prizes), and they were not playing by the rules.  He wanted to know what could be done to make them comply, other than public defamation, and perhaps stoning? Ok, I am kidding on the last part...

This brought up an interesting problem.  I didn't have the answer though. I knew what I would tell my own children- that there are people in this world that will always want to cheat.  I would ask them what they wanted to get out of the program- did they want to run faster? commit to reaching a goal? was that more important than who wins a prize? (You can tell I was never a person that responded to extrinsic motivators...)

I went home to think about what speech I would give, and what action I would take.  The revised kickoff will be Tuesday, and I have until then to come up with a plan.  I talked to my father, hoping to gain some wisdom.  He deals with organizations often, and always has a story to offer when dealing with business or large groups of people.

He told me how an employee at a very large company was made to wear a pedometer to make sure he was circulating the floor during the night shift.  The pedometer would be tracked every morning.  The employee did not keep with his end of the bargain, and instead of complying with his job description, he found out there was a machine on the floor that jiggled quite a bit.  He paid an employee that worked on said machine x-dollars to wear the pedometer, so that it would register plenty of steps.  Meanwhile, he could kick his feet up and read a magazine, or even take a nap, while his employees went unattended.

Long story short: the pedometer was left on too long, one morning it looked like the man walked 40 miles in a night, and he was fired.  So, I guess my public stoning sounded about right?

I started thinking about ethics, and if I could make this a truly teachable moment.  There aren't a lot of ethics classes in schools, and I wonder why that is.  It has nothing to do with religion--we are just teaching students to make decisions based on their values or reasoning.  I, personally, think it is one of the biggest lessons we could give to these kids.  I wondered how I would approach a lesson on ethics and make it interesting to the kids.  I didn't want to lock them into a room and rant to them, and I certainly didn't want to harass the ones that are already making the right decisions.  But I did want to make sure we were all on the same page, and give the opportunity for all of them to receive the same guidance.  I have learned in my years of teaching that we can't assume the parents have taught them values and reasoning.

What did I decide?  I did decide to give a modified applied ethics lesson.  I also decided to have a public contract displayed, where students can commit to doing the right thing, and signing their names outside my door.  I don't want to be a jaded person that constantly questions people's intentions.  I want kids to have some respect of  me, and I want to be able to trust them. I refuse to live in a world where I always have to plan for the bad guy.  At the same time, I have to realize that there are people that want to get rewards without doing the work, and it is my job as a teacher (and really as an adult) to guide them into making intelligent choices.  I do that by modeling appropriate behavior, and I can also do that by discussing important issues such as these.

This made me remember the one time I got in trouble in school. It was the third grade, and I was made to stay in from recess for 15 minutes because I was talking while the teacher was out of the room.  The real story: I DID talk, but I was telling the others to be quiet while the teacher was out (and I was trying to read). And when the teacher returned and asked who talked, I could not deny that I did it.  I just wish she didn't have to make an example out of me.

I do believe that part of this project was for me to run in a race--got it.  But I can see how it has evolved to quite a life-changing experience.  There are kids that are now dealing with important life issues, are getting healthier (by the hundreds!), and are inspiring change in their community.  How many people can say that about their to-do lists?