Teaching and Writing

I'm having mixed feelings about teaching lately.

Some moments I love it and I think about how lucky I am to have a job that lets me bring knowledge and happiness and success to the young people who really need to feel these things because they never have before. I love that my job lets me feel so proud to be a girl! I like that our mission is about empowering young women to believe in themselves and pushes them towards a future they didn't think they could achieve because of all the crap they faced in the past.

Other moments I just want to be in my own space, working at my own pace and not having to deal with seventeen things at once. I crave quiet and organization. Sunlight and privacy.

Perhaps I just need a classroom with a window and a door.

My fiance still hasn't decided on which job to take, so where I will live and work after the wedding (which is in only 116 days!) is still up in the air. It is exciting and nervewracking all at once.

I'm excited about living in our own place somewhere new. I've been cutting out magazine pictures of the home/puppy/lifestyle we'll have and playing with the images like paper dolls. My pictures aren't of elaborate expensive things. They include pictures of a cartoon couple (that weirdly resembles Danny and I) grilling together, a teeny gray dog curled up on a leather chair, a superbly organized pantry, decorating ideas for the Halloween Ball I'd love to throw for our future neighbors and friends, bicycles we'll ride on Saturday afternoons, etc.

I'm worried that following my fiance from job to job for the rest of my life will prevent me from having a successful career of my own. However, I'm hopeit will inspire me to return to my original passions of creating and writing. Especially if he takes one particular job that will take us to the other side of the planet. Professional opportunities for a reading teacher/English major/journalist in the middle of the jungle/desert/frozen tundra are limited. But what better setting for writing a novel?

In fact, a small part of me is afraid he will take the job because it would mean I have no more excuses for not beginning the book. And it will no longer be a matter of me pretending that I could be a novelist if I simply had the time/opportunity. Rather it could mean me failing at writing a novel because I'm not good enough or creative enough to finish a thought provoking story. All the excuses for not going ahead and starting the project would disappear, and I'll have to face my shortcomings as a writer.