Clarity

So, I had kind of an awesome moment yesterday afternoon. It was more of an internal experience than anything but it seems to have had a profound effect on my mood that has lasted into today. Amazing.

It's not really much of a secret to those around me that I had a bit of a "rough" year. I had to deal with a series of extremely unfortunate events, and within the span of a couple of months I went from feeling like I was on top of the world to feeling like I was carrying the weight of the world. Around March I began to wonder if the universe was playing a really gigantic practical joke on me. I mean, no one could possibly have been experiencing the same crappiness that I was. Honestly, I realize that things could have become much worse. But it all felt horrible, nonetheless.

Then this summer, my load lightened a little bit. I went back to school for my master's degree and found a renewed sense of purpose. I went back to work at my usual summer job and laughed a lot. I even had a fun little summer fling. But in rapid succession the laid-back summer semester ended, my job was over, and the fling had far over-run its course. And by mid-September I was feeling disheartened once again. I believe the exact word I used when describing my feelings to my roommate was "broken." I needed to be fixed. I needed to feel happiness again. I was ready to let something good come back into my life, but I didn't know how to make that happen.

Then, yesterday, I experienced a moment of clarity. It happened in the strangest place: the classroom where I've been student teaching. My poor students. They were working on their reading skills. I should have been helping. Instead, I was having an intense, personal moment of realization that almost made me cry. Thank goodness I pulled myself back together. The thing that I realized is that I have a lot of love in my life. I have a lot to be happy about. And even though things can be hard sometimes I have this feeling that everything is going to be okay. I know I'm going to fall in love again. I know that this whole teaching thing, although unexpected, is going to work out. I just need to not be afraid of what I don't know and forgive myself for life being different than I wanted it to be.

"I want to let go and know that I'll be all right, all right."