Um. Hi.

I'm student teaching now, which is amazing and terrible and draining and energizing and hilarious and tragic and painful and enlightening and tedious and so very, very exciting. I'm at the school from 7:45-2:30 every day. I help run a home room, and i teach two classes: a ninth grade and a twelfth grade. The two groups could hardly be more different, and i love them and want to strangle them almost daily. And i LOVE getting to talk about books all day. Although i'm kind of sick of Romeo and Juliet by now.

My job is still amazing. We had our first round of reviews recently, and mine was good. In fact, i got a raise. I have wonderful friends, i get to do fun and interesting things, and there's always something to snack on. It's basically perfect, except that i don't get to talk about books as much as i'd like.

Family stuff is rough, as always. It's hard to be away from them, but it's hard to be with them for very long. There's a healthy helping of the usual drama, as well as more real stuff: heart conditions and cancer and so forth.

I'm writing here and there. I'm insanely busy: lesson planning, grading, meetings, teaching, working, sleeping, and eating take up an unbelievable amount of time. More than once, i've had to sacrifice things like sleeping, eating, church, time with friends, sleeping, eating, hydrating, laundry, sleeping, and eating in order to juggle my responsibilities. I keep my eyes on the finish line in May, and i keep reminding myself that i have a whole summer to relax before i can start teaching, assuming i get a job right away (which is by no means a foregone conclusion).

Anyway. The best time i have to write is when i'm at school, but blogger is blocked, so i spend that time lesson planning and hand-writing poems and watching Mariah Gale's Ophelia, particularly the madness scenes. She is magnetic.

So i haven't been here in a while. All of my daily routines have completely disappeared; i'm rebuilding my life from the ground up. I'm searching for new rhythms that allow me to survive, to breathe, to get things done, to be happy. I haven't found room for this yet.

I don't know that i will. I'm beginning to wonder if i've outgrown this, if i've come to a place in my life where i'm living so fully that i no longer need so much space to dream. Or maybe i'm stretched so thin that i simply don't have a place to put this anymore, and once things calm down a little, it will come back.

I know there are things here i've left incomplete. I'm strangely okay with that. I know there are stories i still need to tell. I can tell them elsewhere. I know there are stories i've told here and nowhere else. That's how life goes.

This will never go away entirely, but it's less central to me now. We'll see where it goes.

20fucking14

There were moments when i thought this year would never come. 2013 was one of the hardest years of my life, and i'm comparing it to 2007/2008, when my parents were getting divorced, and 2011, when my brother got blown up.

My friend Bryan died. My amazing boyfriend, the love of my life, one of the best people i've ever known, started pulling away from me. I left my job in the hopes of finding a new one and finally (finally!) finishing my degree. A fight with my best friend of six years left a rift that slowly widened. We don't talk anymore. My boyfriend and i broke up, leaving both of us torn and battered and very, very sad. Both of my grandfathers died. I've had financial struggles like never before. The Boston marathon was bombed. 30 Rock ended.

There was good stuff, too. Bryan was very sick, and i'm glad he's finally at peace. A dear friend of mine was married. My cousin had a beautiful baby boy right before Christmas. I have two amazing new roommates. I have an incredible job filled with incredible people that i actually want to spend time with outside of work. I reconnected with old friends. I lost about 40 pounds. I passed all my MTELs and got a student teaching placement for the spring.

So overall, i'm okay. I am exactly okay. No better, no worse. I'm starting 2014 with the conviction that things can only get better from here.