Big Changes Coming

 Again, it has been quite a while since I have posted on here. I think primarily, it's because I'm still in transition. I feel like I've been there most of my life. I'm always trying to become someone for someone else. I feel like I go in circles a lot, not knowing why or where I'm headed. Truth is, I've never really known. I've tried a many number of jobs within a many number of fields, and I've never been satisfied with any of them. Some say my expectations are too great for the things I have done. Truth be told, I just want to come home from work feeling good about what it is I spent my day doing. In all these possible equations, the one that seems to fit is teaching. So, I went back and I finally finished my student teaching last spring. My hurdle now is passing the Praxis. I am confident that I can. I've bought a book to study because I did fail it once. This administration has me incredibly worried with all the cuts to educational funding statewide. I know I am needed now more than ever, but good teachers are abandoning the profession at alarming rates and that really has me shaking at this decision. Truth is, I don't know what to do next. I keep looking for openings and they just aren't showing up yet, which seems very late in the year. Summer is almost over and I don't have a clue what is going to happen. I know I'm going to go through with it. I have been working concerts for Penmac at Thunder Ridge. It has been very challenging logistically. I went to work Jelly Roll, Post Malone, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and Hozier concerts so far. Each of them had some kind of issue regarding traffic or weather. Some shows even cancelled due to a bad storm moving through. I have been keeping an eye online for jobs in teaching and I have applied at a high school locally. I haven't heard anything back yet. I am going to continue applying until something gives. I still have to conquer the Praxis. I have been studying a lot. Hopefully, I can get it done in time. I really need some good moojoo. Please put in a word for me upstairs to the powers that be. I'm 45 now, and I need just some kind of sign that I'm at least on the right path. This seems so late to finally be choosing a career.

Meanwhile, my generation has been taking quite a beating lately with all the celebrities and heroes dying. The saddest one for me by far was Ozzy Osbourne. I loved him all through high school and college. I felt like he was very misunderstood by my elders as I was growing up. Ozzy was most definitely a pacifist who believed in love of every and all kinds. His music was so great for venting all of my frustrations of teenage angst, something my daughter has since begun at 15. She has her permit now and will be 16 in April, so we have been frantically trying to figure out the car situation. In the meantime, I am just plugging along at the nature center and greenways trail every day, trying to get in my 6 miles. This 100+° weather is about to end me sometimes, but I try like hell to keep going no matter what. I'm committed to my health. That is the most important thing to me right now. I want to live to have grandkids. I want to be as healthy as I can be for that day. Wow. Did I just think about being a grandpa?!? Weeeeeird. 

Boy, oh boy, do I Have Some Updates

 There are so many things to update on here, I'm not even sure where to begin. First and foremost, Annie and I got MARRIED on 10/31/22 on the island of Jamaica. It was the best time. We did many excursions. We rode 4-wheelers, ziplined and went tubing down the White River. We even went to a place called the Luminous Lagoon where the Caribbean would glow in the dark because of a bioluminescent organism in the water. It was an incredible trip. We couldn't have picked a better place to say our vows than a wonderful beach in the Caribbean.

  When we got home, it was back to business as usual. I was working at a bank at the time as a Personal Banker. I knew deep down that, although it was paying the bills, it wasn't what I wanted to retire doing the rest of my life. From there, I did bounce around a little trying various jobs. They were all over the map. I worked in a warehouse briefly, a roofing company, and a local discount store. All of which just weren't cutting it for me. I knew deep down what it was I ultimately wanted to do, and many have called me crazy for even thinking about it. I needed to teach. I had been in school ten years ago, and had to bail out of my student teaching about 4 weeks into it because of financial hardship. My house was three months behind and nearly all of my bills were becoming delinquent. I had to put my dream on hold not knowing if I would ever be able to afford to attempt it again. Ultimately, I believe that led me to divorce, but albeit a saving grace in disguise because you really don't know how unhappy you are in a relationship until you become inundated with joy from a new one. I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything. 

  Annie decided she was going to start applying at other jobs and when she picked up a higher paying one, it opened the door for me to try and pick up where I left off. So, that's what I have done. I recently went back to Penmac and completed the requirements for sub teaching. I have since gotten my certificate and have been subbing the last couple of weeks in Springfield. I was also offered a scholarship to return to MSU to complete my teaching credential once and for all. I will complete my student teaching in the Spring and be able to finally call myself a high school English teacher. I was hoping to get onboard on a provisional, meaning I would be able to get paid to do my student teaching as a school employee, but that didn't work as I have still not been able to pass the MOCA. I am terrible at standardized tests. I always have been. I tried to go in barely studying at all for the thing, and I actually even came really close (even after being away from the classroom for ten more years). I just couldn't make it happen, so I'm still rolling with the punches and putting in the time with subbing and my one college class to finally see this thing through. I am not giving up. Many things in life come easily to people. I tend to choose the rocky paths with many twists and turns along the way. As I've gotten older, I've realized that experience is what molds us into who we are and what roles we are meant to take. 

Remodeling Life

 I guess the reason why I hate the cliché that "everything happens for a reason" and that "things are meant to be" is that for one second, if you get too comfortable in life, the rug can be pulled out from underneath you even after said things happen. What I mean is just don't ever get too comfortable ever; whether this is in relationships, at work, or just generally speaking in life. I am yet again facing a crossroads (something that jist seems to confront me every chance it gets). I thought I had finally found the right career for me, but evidently, I was wrong. You know, all I've ever really wanted was a career I can stick with and master. At 42, it is really difficult to find the will in working towards something when you're not even sure which race you want to enter. I haven't even put my shoes on yet, more or less, saw a glimpse of that light at the end of the tunnel of glorious retirement. Will my generation even get the opportunity? I have a friend who is 2 years my junior who says he's gonna do it in 12 years. Well, more power to him. I wish I had that kind of foresight. I just feel like my light for hope in the career sector has just become dimmer, but maybe that has to do with my constant will to compare myself to others. Don't we all do that? Isn't that why fb is so cancerous? Shouldn't I be more concerned with what I'm doing and less concerned with what I SHOULD be doing? I think that's rooted deep within my upbringing with a narcissistic stepfather. It has taken years to overcome some of his shit, and the second I think I'm healed of it, something like this rears its ugly head. I don't want to tell people I was fired. I don't want to tell people the confusion and uncontrollable misery that is government work. It was physically making me ill not knowing my role, not fully understanding HOW to do my job, and no matter how many videos I watched of the same rhetoric over and over again, it wasn't explaining it at all. How did we get to this point? That's the piece I needed, but it isn't required to know. It isn't required to learn. It was required to fulfill a role. The job wasn't hard. I just had to be there, and I wasn't A LOT. That's on me. That's my fault, but give me a manager who is present, and I'll find you employees who feel useful. Tell me what I'm doing wrong, don't tell me what is wrong with the system. That helps no one. So, yeah, you let me go, but just know i had 1.5 feet out the door already. Government work is not for everyone, they say (whoever they are, probably former govt workers) and I found out how much that really applied to me. 

Here's something new for me: I am about as happy as I've ever been, but the only piece missing is that fulfilling aspect of feeling productive at work, so I chose the next best thing: I finally pieced together the partially remodeled house into a home. We have since put in new floors. We ripped out all the carpet and linoleum and put down Pergo. I had a lot of help, but we did not contract it out to save money. I'm not very handy, but it is done. For weeks, we had doors everywhere and boxes of things strewn everywhere and it was making me crazy. So, since I'm home a lot right now, I rearranged it. And now, I feel more at peace. Andrea has a job in Springfield, so she hasn't been at home as much. I went and got flowers for the table and began making my house home again. It felt really good. It felt less stressful. It was like I found purpose again. When results are positive, it makes the work worth it. I've had a few interviews, and even a couple offers, but now for the first time in my life, I feel like I can be selective. Andrea has made that possible for me, and I think this is one way of showing her my gratitude. Don't get me wrong, I am going back to work very soon, but in the meanwhile, I can finally tie up those things that are difficult to complete when both spouses work. That part feels great. The mission is clear. The task is achievable, and the results make it all worth it. 

So many updates, so little time

   So I just noticed that I haven't updated on here in a long time and so many things have changed yet again. The theme of the week, it seems, is lack of space, and once again I find myself in the middle of clutter. It's different this time around though because for the first time in my life,  I enjoy sharing my bubble with my partner. I always thought that I needed to have space physically in a relationship. What I've found is that you can share closer space with someone you truly love, and it doesn't seem painful, suffocating, and like work. When you truly love someone, you support them and they reciprocate. I have never in my life felt this way before about anyone. It truly is incredible. Andrea and I have taken the next step. Things are falling together almost as if it were predestined to happen. I have a hard time with believing things are 'meant to be.' I hate thinking that when someone in your life passes and they were super young, that it was meant to be or "God's will." Who am I to know what that is? I believe it quite literally is a way for people to cope with the difficult. I sit here thinking that a lot of things had to systematically happen for me to be here in this position; albeit in a relationship or a career. And, just within the last couple years, I've been placed in both. I found a job through the state because I was a customer of sorts, who quite literally joined the very company that helped me find a job. I now am like the hair club client who became president of said company. Just as I was about to quit online dating, I turned to the gods of Facebook and made the best friend I could have. It's like the algorithm perfected itself and manifested right before my eyes. Who made who? From the first day I met her, I knew I would spend the rest of my life with her. I was about to give up online dating because no one's profile matched who they really were, and that's the very same deception I was already running from. My brother once said I married my narcissistic stepdad, and that never made sense to me... until she was absent from my life. I had to relearn how to ride a bike. Not literally, but figuratively. I didn't know how I wanted my house to look after she left because it never occurred to me that I was capable of making that decision. Once I remembered what it was I liked doing, it made doing those things fun again. The 'new' is actually playing those things together; going to Memphis in May together; watching live rock shows together; watching the same silly show over and over and over and over again together, and not apologizing for happiness. Not having to justify feelings on either side of the wall. Feel. Just unapologetically feel. My living room now has a pallet full of Pergo flooring, and I'm about to remodel my heart once and for all, just as the trip back to CA to see my grandmother(s) AND introduce them to my love of my life and drive with my dad up the coast of OR: it happened. It was unlikely. It was random and it was one of the best weeks of my life. I hadn't the means, but my future wife found a way; same as the Jamaican wedding, and PS5 and Nintendo Switch for Christmas. Instead of regret on the excess holiday spending, she did something I just could not fathom: she got a second job delivering packages because of a splurge on me. I just put that into words; a life fulfilled. 

This is the epitome of happiness. 

Changes...changes...changes

 If there's one mantra I lived by as a kid, it was that I hated change. I'm not sure if I really did or if that whole idea was just shoved down my throat so much that I just believed it, but it does seem to hold true. I've worked for companies longer than I initially anticipated because changing jobs sucks, and nobody wants to start over, but with divorce comes the need to wash it all away and start new. I'm still in the first house I ever bought. I've been told countless times from several people that it is the best time to sell. Sure, it'd be great to pay off my bills and be in a different place all my own, but something is keeping me here. I love being close to all of Hazel's schools. It was an intentional decision made as she was born. Only 7 short more years and she will be an adult. That just doesn't seem possible, and the older I get, the faster time seems to elapse. 

I took a risk recently and left Chase to potentially make more money, but that doesn't seem to be working out for me. I feel pushed back to clean slate again. All I've really wanted was a career I can rely on to pay my bills. I've never had a desire to be rich. I guess that's why I chose teaching as a career. But my gosh, if that would have worked out, I just sit here thinking about what covid would have been like in the classroom. Would it have driven me away? I've known so many to leave teaching after the dumpster fire that was 2020. I hate the cliche that everything happens for a reason, but maybe that was my reason for delay in getting my certification. Is it worth going back and finishing? Could I get a provisional teaching job? I mean, hell, I'm 41. I've had some life experience by now. Shouldn't that qualify me to be able to skip the student teaching requirement?

Truth is, I don't really know what I want to be when I grow up. I really never wanted to grow up in the first place. It's all a trick. If you can prevent it, I wouldn't recommend it. Just keep being a kid. Adulting sucks. I don't even really like doing the same shit I did as a kid anymore. I barely play video games, and I can't remember the last time I swung a golf club. And, all of my Hawaiian shirts were sold at one of my garage sales years ago. What in the hell do I even like doing? 

Andrea bought some clubs like a year ago and the plastic wrap is still on the irons. Do I even like golf or was that just something I was told I liked? No clue. I feel pretty damn lost, and my GPS just keeps taking me in circles. You stay at a job for the great benefits and insurance, but that job ends up being the main reason you need the insurance in the first place. Round and around we go. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Well, I guess I'm just sick of the ride, so I bailed. And now, I'm sitting here going wtf did I just do. I can't count the amount of times I've been rehired from jobs I quit because that sick feeling comes back of I really can't find anything better. Well, I can... and I will... I hope. Fuck. 

I'm just thankful that Andrea is hanging on. She has the patience of a Saint. She's taken custody of her niece and is constantly filling out apps for jobs here. I can't wait for us to be together under the same roof. Long distance relationships are hard, but I'm staying strong, and rolling with the punches. After all, my divorce was final in OCT, and it has been time to move on for a while now. I still can't believe Andrea bought Hazel a trampoline for her birthday!! I feel like the luckiest guy alive. Sometimes change just happens to us. We don't control it. It just comes in, kicks you in the nuts and forces you to take inventory of your life. I'm definitely looking forward to the seasons ahead.

Masks, masks, masks...

 Still no end in sight on this COVID 19 stuff. I really am beginning to believe it is just a new way of life. The mayor of Springfield is pushing for a mandatory ordinance for the state for masks, just as Springfield has done. Ozark and Nixa still say no, and I'm stuck right in the middle again. Hazel is back in school for now, and the teachers sent pics of them with plastic shields in front of their faces. What a strange world we live in now. Haze went with her mask on, as all students are required to wear them now. Some of her friends have chosen to attend class online only, but we have mutually determined it is best for her to be physically in school. I think she'd lose her mind if forced to stay home one more minute. Basically, her summer break essentially began in March, but the month of summer school did seem to go swimmingly. 

  I hope I am making the correct decision by sending her to school. I realize she needs some normalcy again, but at what cost? I am convinved her school is doing everything in its power to help prevent the spread, but the truth is, nobody really knows when and if it'll get worse again. Did we open back up prematurely? Time will only tell. I've made it clear to Haze that she could have school cancelled again anytime, and it breaks my heart that she lives in a time where something as important as school interaction could be taken away from her again at a moment's notice. I know health is the most important thing here, but when the threat is totally invisible, it definitely generates paranoia in some just as it breeds naysayers. I guess it really comes down to one question: what's our next step in fighting this thing? I am not a Healthcare professional, but do believe we should all listen and comply with the CDC because to err on the side of caution is better than the alternative. 

What a crazy time to live...

I had to work today, but if I hadn't I would have noticed the massive amount of people protesting in the middle of Glenstone today. A man by the name of George Floyd was killed in MN by a policeman kneeling on his neck. Ever since this happened a few days ago, the world is literally in a state of unrest. Covid 19 has also caused utter chaos with months of social isolation and quarantining. It makes me wonder if this could escalate into something as frightening as Ferguson or worse. I'm worried about the world I'm leaving for my daughter. Watching people scream obscenities at one another over things like racism and mask wearing just scares the hell out of me. There is no question in my mind that I will always raise my child to believe black lives matter, especially as she grows up here in the midwest where racial injustice is more prevalent. As far as the mask thing goes, it is just too difficult to take a stance one way or another on that. If I were a healthcare worker, I'm sure that would be different. As of right now, i still don't wear a mask, but i wouldn't refuse if I was asked to put one on in a medical office or business.

This hatred that keeps rising to the top of social and political spheres just makes me ill. I have maintained my job throughout this mess, but there were a few days when I worked at the office where I felt afraid of contracting the virus. I'm very thankful to be home working. It has been tough, but i still keep up with my walking everyday. This was something I took up a few years ago to lose weight. At one point, i was down over 90 lbs and never felt better. Since Covid, I've gained a little over 20 lbs, but still keep up the walking. It isn't always easy to maintain the momentum, especially since I live in the armpit lf the midwest. Missouri doesn't have the best weather in the world, but I still make do.

My goal right now is to keep the weight off and challenge my little girl to do more activity with me. Andrea and I picked her up a new bike off of marketplace that she seems fairly comfortable with, but still wont let me let her go on two wheels without hanging onto my arms the whole time. Hopefully, she will get it eventually without too many scrapes. We will just keep plugging along til she is comfortable. Wish us luck!