3 posts tagged “life”
List five reasons (at least) why you are awesome.
Submitted by goobers18.
1. I set goals and reach them.
2. I've let go and held on, both of which can be difficult.
3. I love Christmas like whoa.
4. In the past four months, I have successfully conquered my first semester of teaching and advising a yearbook staff, planned a wedding, and lived in "sin" (according to my parents).
5. I was molested by my ex-brother-in-law, and I finally got the courage to tell my parents about it, 11 years later. It's been one heck of a year.
Finish this sentence: "I am glad to say that I have never had meaningless sex."
Submitted by chl*.
Remember that book from when we were kids, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? Remember how his day was awful because his sweater fell in the sink and there was kissing on TV? Yeah. Well change Alexander to Amy and "day" to "week" and you have the condensed and illustrated version of the past five days of my life. I have been sick beyond all reason, stressed with student teaching hoopla, and basically worried about things that really shouldn't be bothering me at all. And then tonight, it was all made better by a gorgeous little three year old who is still able to look at life as a series of popsicles and SpongeBob episodes and understand that everything we get ourselves all worked up about doesn't really matter anyway.
I was holding Anna Cate tonight for the first time since my fever spiked on Friday, and she was super-excited to be able to be back in my lap and not an arm's length and a can of Lysol away, and as usual, I was grinning at her chubby little cheeks as she explained how her popsicle was representative of both Gamecocks and Duke (she comes from a sports family, if you can't tell.) I leaned over to get something and accidentally pulled her ponytail, and instantly, she yelped and got a little tear in her eye. I began apologizing vehemently, explaining that it was an accident and that I was sorry. She then placed her tiny little hand on mine, looked up at me and smiled, and said, "Amy, it's okay. Don't you know, happen things like that?" And yet again, I was reminded of why she is the very first person I ever fell in love with on July 9, 2003 at 1:13 in the afternoon.
She's right, "happen things like that," and as much as I know it, it is so easy to forget. Things happen that we don't understand. We don't know why kids in our classes don't ever seem to get the breaks we know they deserve. We don't understand why we're in the middle of a war in which we don't belong or why parents don't take care of children like they should. We don't understand why friendships end or why people we thought we could always count on are suddenly not the people we thought they were. We don't understand cancer or AIDS or poverty or world hunger. We don't understand O.J. Simpson or organized religion or The Pussycat Dolls, and we don't know why good guys finish last. But regardless of how very much we don't understand, things happen, and all we can do is deal. We deal in various ways, whether through writing or singing or punching or crying or cutting or drinking or smoking a pack of Newports--we deal, each in our own way, unique to us.
And somehow, even though my beautiful niece was right, and things do just happen, we get through them. That doesn't mean that when we emerge from the muck that we are the same as when we went in. Whether emotional or physical, we have battle scars and wounds to remind us of the journey, and we are never the same. Every twist and turn brings about a new lesson, and we are better for learning it, better in the long run at least. At the end of our road anyway, we are nothing more than our journey, and the people with whom we shared it.
