I’m very sorry about the fateful (and fatal) way we met on Friday night past.  I did not want to smash into you with my SUV, but you really left me no choice.  Standing in the opposite lane in the pitch black on M-55 at 10pm was a poor choice on your part, I must point out.

In my history, you are the first deer I have hit and killed.  I know this must be surprising to you given that I was born and raised in Michigan and I have driven here all my life.  Killing a deer seems to be a right of passage in the Wolverine State, and apparently, I’m quite delayed in joining this destructive club.

You should know that I was very upset and bothered by this experience.  After Ben reprimanded me for hitting you and screaming (a mistake on his part since he did not see the accident because he was online..yes, I know, you can do that in a car now!), I broke down and sobbed about the life I took.  Seriously.  I could not even get out and look at the damage you did, nor could I affirm that you were indeed dead on the side of the road.  Ben took care of these details for me.

You left a permanent mark on my Equinox, marks that will take $3600 to repair.  You also left several tufts of hair stuck in broken parts of my car, little reminders of the suicide you committed a week ago.  I’m happy to say I have insurance, so my portion of this bill will be markedly less.  The car is getting fixed tomorrow so I do not have to relive the incident again and again when I see the multiple broken parts scattered across the front of my car.

I hope you are resting comfortably in a happier place or rejoining your relatives who have also passed before you.  As for myself, I will be watching the roads with more vigilance and living without my car for the next 4-7 days.

Rest in peace,
Holly

I believe that my recent “depressive” comments on life are an expression of my new-found disillusionment with the world.  This may sound dramatic, but I think it really took me 32 years to realize some hard truths.  I had believed, albeit naively, that good things happen to good people and if you work hard enough, you will get what you’re working for.  I still believe this on some level, but I had created this idea as a blanket-statement about how the world goes around.  I was very disillusioned.

Everywhere I look, from a school level with 40 co-workers to a city, state, and national level, it feels like nobody is listening to one another.  I talk with parents about different educational issues and take time to give my opinion because it has been solicited, only to have the parents do what they wanted to do anyway.  Administration in my district are making decisions solely on their own personal wants and needs–they are listening to nobody further down the food chain.  I vote in favor of a tax increase that promises to save police and fire personnel in Grand Rapids, only to hear on the news that because voters don’t want to pay for their street lights, we will lose emergency workers anyway.  I write letters to my congress people about legislation affecting me, they send back a form letter telling me that they’re sorry for my plight, but they’re going to do what they’re going to do.  Companies are dumping millions of tons of oil into the ocean and everyone is watching the disaster from the sidelines.

When I discuss any of the above issues with other adults, all of us shake our heads in disgust.  But what are we DOING about it?  Nothing–and why?  Because we’re exhausted.  We feel like we’re fighting but no one’s listening.  No one cares!  It’s a scary, sad commentary when Americans–a land of the people, by the people, for the people–shrug their shoulders with apathy.  Hence my disillusionment, I thought if I upheld a sense of good and worked hard, I would get somewhere.  All I’m doing is spinning my wheels and not sleeping at night.

I feel disillusioned, and maybe my comments do come off as depressive.  I struggle with being depressed, especially in stressful times–much like an alcoholic who craves a drink when life gets hard, I crave a nap when times get tough because I can escape my problems and go to my alternative never-never land.  I know I will come to terms with my disappointment, but it seems silly to act as if I’m content with the way the world is operating.  I think it’s a shame that people are writing that off as Holly’s Depression when really it’s an expression of how I feel.  Again, anyone who knows me shouldn’t expect glasses half-full.  I speak my mind (perhaps too easily and bluntly) and it isn’t always upbeat, but it’s honest.  I could blow sunshine and act as if the world is at my fingertips, but it’s just not.  I respect that some people have to operate in that mode, but it’s just not me.

Will times change?  Yes.  Will things change for the better?  I sure hope so.  Will I feel better about things in the future?  Absolutely.  Will the world implode before any of the above occur?  Maybe.  I understand that being around Debbie Downer is no fun, but I am just trying to be honest and realistic about life today.  If everyone sees that as depressive, so be it.  I classify it as an expression of my disillusionment–and at the end of the day, what I think is what matters most anyway.

I did the 5K, despite the cold and rain.  It didn’t rain while I was running, but it did both before and after.  Despite walking 1/4 of the way up a steep hill, I knocked almost three minutes off my previous 5K time for a new personal best of 33:37.  I was pleased with my performance and in my training, I discovered how much more I like running outdoors versus indoors.  The treadmill is good when it is icy, snowy, and freezing cold or rainy, but the outdoors rocks otherwise.  I am not nearly as bored outside and the time passes much more quickly.  On the treadmill, I just watch the stats stack up as I stare at the boring basement bedroom surroundings.

All hell has broken loose at school, as it usually does at the end of the year.  10 more teachers were pink slipped and for all practical purposes, eliminated altogether to save money our district doesn’t need to save.  The district has 2.1 million in the bank, yet those of us remaining will have to teach 28-30 children in horrible educational circumstances so the district “looks good” on paper, I guess.  Our negotiations are even worse and I know more than the average bear due to my executive affiliations with our union.  We will all be forced to lose thousands of dollars if the contract goes as the board wishes.

Then there’s individual students.  In the past week, I have been at two depressing, disastrous IEP meetings.  In one, I was there advocating that a severely autistic child should not be placed in my classroom next year because my room is not an appropriate placement considering his limited abilities to communicate and participate academically (he has not passed any of the academic milestones required to “pass” kindergarten).  Our staff is advocating a placement in a cognitively impaired room where the teacher to student ratio is 1:12 vs. my 1:25 currently and GOD KNOWS what next year.  We were basically told by ISD “experts” (and I use that term loosely) we don’t know what we’re talking about.  I went to another meeting the next day for a student I’ve had for two years only to be told by the parents that they really don’t feel their child has grown in my classroom.  In other words, I sucked.

I guess, to me, this all adds up to being really unappreciated.  I have always accepted that people take what I do for granted, but this always equaled out somehow when I see the learning taking place and a nice little thank you from a parent on the bottom of a newsletter.  This year, I just can’t get passed the crap.  Told from all sides how I should teach, run my classroom, accept students with inappropriate classroom placements, and do it with grace and a smile–because after all, I have a job.  Do it for less money, too, while our superintendent enjoys his 10,000 dollar bonus.

Ben and I have seriously discussed me not teaching.  I’ve never imagined not teaching, ever.  I know I’ve said it before, but I have always held teaching as my sanctuary.  Despite everything else going on in my life, I have always been able to turn to teaching and know I’m good at what I do.  I feel as if I’ve failed elsewhere in my life and I refuse to believe that I’ve failed as a teacher as well.  I know I’m still good at the teaching part, but it’s the everything else that sucks.  This year has been more bad days than good, and Ben and I’s rule is that you keep doing it until the bad outweighs the good.  I just don’t know what else I’d do.  I’m waiting for God to fill in the blanks so I can proceed.

So as I run, these are the thoughts that permeate my being.  I also wonder about if I’ll ever be a mom, will Ben and I ever build our dreamhouse, and how I will possibly pack up all of my classroom in the next 15 days.  I have no idea what I did before I ran.

So today after dropping off my carpool buddy and getting my back adjusted, I tried to scope out a new outside running route.  Last fall’s route was very last minute and a bit frightening.  I ended up running the “big block” around my house, which involved running over I-196 via an overpass with no sidewalk lane and through a very abandoned-looking industrial district.   I also had to run under the highway on the way back to my house, always wondering if a homeless individual was sleeping at the top and was about to jump me.  Never saw anyone, but what else is there to do while running besides worry and sweat?  So, a new route it is.

I think I found a decent alternative to the old route–it is all through suburban neighborhood that I have walked with the dog, there are sidewalks (safety first!), and I am more familiar with the area than my previous route.  I don’t think it’s quite as long, but sacrifice for safety I will.  I don’t need to star on my own personal episode of I Survived retelling my harrowing account of how I was mugged, raped, and left for dead behind a dumpster while running through a deserted industrial park as I trained for a 5K.  As they tattoo “STUPID” on my forehead!

This whole 5K has kind-of blown up in my face.  Initially, several people said they’d run this, and I was actually asked to do it by a friend who needed some motivation to train for it and felt inspired by me doing it in the fall, so she asked if I’d do it with her.  I ran the one in the fall to prove to myself I could do it–I wasn’t terribly interested in keeping it up, but she’s a good friend and I thought, why not?  To date, I think everyone has canceled except my fateful carpool buddy–even my girlfriend who needed a motivator is looking like she will bow out gracefully.  With my luck, my sidekick will break her foot playing scooter hockey with the kids at school next week and I will be the Lone Run Ranger again.  I guess it shouldn’t matter–I’m just racing myself and the stop watch anyway.

That’s not all of it, though.  In my heart of hearts, I’m disappointed because it has been a very hard year in many facets of my life, but despite that, I stayed committed to my friends and trained for this run.  I would have LOVED to sleep in through the winter, especially in the midst of my why-am-I-taking-all-these-grad-classes-right-now crisis, but I went sleep deprived and dragged my ass onto that treadmill to honor my commitment.  I am not in any position to judge anyone–everyone has their reasons, and many, many others have also had a difficult year, but I also can’t help but feel how I do.  Let down, I guess.  The fall 5K was for me, this one was to help them and be a part of something–I didn’t need this one, this one was for them.

Regardless of my friends’ decisions, I will be at the starting line with my new obnoxiously red-colored ipod arm band in Grand Haven at 9am next Saturday.  To quote one of my favorite running tunes: “It’s you against you, it’s the paradox that drives us all.”  At the beginning and the end, I’m challenging myself, so the only person that needs to show…is me.  The Lone Run Ranger.

We were looking for Lucy and after Ben went through his usual routine of whistling, calling her name, and checking closets, he went to look for her downstairs.  After a couple minutes, he called for me to come downstairs.  Ben had thrown our sleeping bags onto the twin bed in the workout room and of course, curled up in the middle of one was Lu.  All we could see was her black head and green eyes peering out.  We both laughed.

Holly: (with a note of sarcasm, but a smile) “She’s so precious”

Ben: “If by precious you mean she’s fat and black, well then, yes.”

Don’t know if it was my good mood or true humor, but I credit him with an authentic Holly laugh.  Love that Ben.

When I woke up this morning, the sun was beaming in my bedroom window, the animals were snoozing along with me, and the day felt ripe for accomplishment.  I had taken the day off from school for a dentist appointment, but since that would be a short commitment, I began my mental list.  I love days like today, because even as I made my list, I knew I would get everything on it accomplished.  So sweet.

I got up and got ready–the dentist/errands were Task #1.  Nothing surprising there–floss more, take my gums seriously–and off on my errands.  Got my fake bake on, new tags for Bailey at animal control, bank stop, and home to walk the pooch.  After a refreshing stroll around the neighborhood, Task #2 was at hand: grad classes.  I FINISHED THEM!  Can I hear a hout-hout?!  They are done and in the mail tomorrow.  What a relief!

Next, Task #3: get my clothes ready for vacation.  I’m spending the weekend with my parents, so packing and getting laundry done for my trip to Vegas is now a this-week task.  The last load is in the dryer, bouya.

Task#4 was to create a dessert.  I made chocolate chip cookies this weekend, but it didn’t quite quench my sweet tooth.  I had a hankering for something with peanut butter, but Ben has been craving my chocolate zucchini bundt cake for a week, and since I was feeling so summery today, I went for it.  As soon as Chuck is over, I am digging into a piece.

Task #5:  rake out the front landscaping.  Twenty minutes of hard work battling ivy with plastic rake tines paid off–I got the nasty leaves from the fall out of the way for my daffodils and irises to rise toward the sun.  (amazing imagery, eh?)

Final task of the day: relax and watch some TV with my hubby.  We’ve got Dexter and Chuck under our belts, wrapping up with some more Dexter and some tasty cake.

I love days like today, it felt like summer.

Next is DirecTV.  Bye bye birdie.  I will miss HGTV, USA, and Biography, but we cannot justify the cost anymore.  Basic tv with an antennae will come to suit us just fine.  We have discovered the wonders of Netflix and watching entire seasons of tv as we wish, sans commercials, for 8.99.  That is a heck of a deal, Ben is amazed by this technology–and that is really saying something considering the things he understands in the world of sheeky geek.

It is also time for us to start consolidating our things.  That will be an interesting venture, one pack rat and one sentimental I-can’t-possibly-imagine-my-life-without-that-item individual.   We already know we will have to get a storage unit to store some of our things so our house appears to be bigger than it is, but we are going to have to make a serious commitment not to move crap.  I think we will get there, it will call for baby steps, I suppose.  Compromise and letting go, two of my least favorite things.

So, in the meantime, we are on episode 3, season 1 of Dexter and I am missing stuff even as I type.  It is a weird show founded on crazy ideas, yet you still come to care about the characters, despite the disturbing stuff they do.  I love a good crime show and Dexter is rising to the challenge, along with a little bit of romance and some deep seeded emotional problems.  Right up my alley–

I’m off to enjoy sheeky geek with my favorite sheeky geek.

I’m also tired of doom and gloom.  I want change here too, and I’m hoping it will come with the rebirth of life associated with spring.  Again this week, my poor friends.  One lost a baby at 37 weeks–I can’t even comment on this one.  Too close to home.  Another found out her youngest brother has cancer, again.  And yet another was to be married in August, only to have her fiance break it off, no warning.  We’re not talking about little things–they’re huge, life-altering situations.  None of this is happening to me, but I can’t help but empathize with these people.  I feel an overwhelming predisposition to sadness these days, it seems everytime I turn around, the prescription for folks is more trying times and dreams flushed down the toilet.  When is it going to end?

I’m beginning to think that maybe I’ve really lived a sheltered life.  This past year has really opened my eyes to the hard times and strife that exist in the world.  I don’t know if it’s just because I’m getting older and naturally, people get sicker, or is it that I care too much about others and get wrapped up in their lives, or is it that I’ve had my head so far up my ass with my own woes that I’ve just blocked out all of these things going on around me?

I’m ready to blog about happier times.  I’m tired of having nothing to talk about but my own hopelessness with how life is panning out for myself and my friends.  I’m hoping in my case and those of my friends that times are about to change, that we are going to turn a corner and finally see some things go our way.  Maybe work will stabilize, maybe kids will be in our future, maybe we will be able to sell our house and finally begin to really think about building a new one.  The one inch plants poking out of my woodchips and buds on my bushes give me the faintest hope that life can spring anew and things can look again to the bright side.  If only I could get there faster.

1.  To prep for my trip out west, I have begun fake baking to get my skin prepared for the Nevada and Arizona heat and sun.  As a result, my skin is very dry.  A parent several years back bought me the most fabulous smelling coconut body lotion that makes me think of spring break, so I dug it out this morning and put it on.  A student told me today that I smelled like Florida.  What a great analogy, I did smell like Florida and I put it on to remind me of going to Florida.  She understood implicitly, amazing.

2.  I have a first grade boy in my class who is one of the neatest kids I’ve ever had.  He is a very, very intelligent kid who is so motivated to learn and push himself–he gets giddy about it!  To boot, he is a very kind kid with a good sense of humor–he’s not obnoxious about any of his talents, just very accepting of himself.  At any rate, as he was heading out of class to get his backpack and snowclothes to go home, he stopped and told me, “I can’t believe it’s Friday already.  It seems like it was just Monday.  I just had so much fun this week, I can’t believe it’s the weekend!”  Kids rarely admit that school was fun or that they enjoyed themselves, yet he did.  A very rewarding moment for a teacher doubting her talents.

Another very powerful, simple reminder: I only have 16 school days before Spring Break.  I quote a fellow teacher when I say, “I think I can, I think I can…”

The lack of funding in education right now has made work stressful.  Hate it.  I have always looked at teaching as my safe-haven of sorts.  Despite how out of control other parts of my life feel, I can go into that classroom, shut the door, and teach America’s future how to read a pictograph and write a simple persuasive essay about the best holiday in the world.  Maybe it’s a control issue, but I’ve always considered the classroom as a place where I’ve yet to truly fail.  So many other important areas of my life are riddled with failure, I’ve always been able to pride myself on my ability to compartmentalize my life for 7 hours and just be a teacher.

This year, everytime I shut my door, someone opens it and dumps something else in my lap I don’t want.  I’ve been told union secrets and vowed secrecy, asked to give my professional opinion on building cuts but to keep quiet about what I know, told stories about fellow co-workers and families in the strictest of confidences.  I haven’t asked for any of this information; to the contrary, much of this has been shared with me without my consent–only after “the secret’s out” am I asked to keep mum.  Co-workers have done much of the same–gossip about this one or that, rumors about cuts and who will be where, caddy stuff I hate.  All of it is dragging me down.

To add insult to injury, I took on the task of taking 5 graduate courses in the course of the past year.  This is a decision I will not make again, but I’m way past that.  I’ve spent countless hours reading about how schools are failing, that we place too much emphasis on high-stakes testing, we are disciplining our students in a completely backward way, our writing curriculum is not up to par, I do not give enough time to my special needs students, I need to consider the needs of my impoverished students more carefully…the thoughts swirling in my head are endless.  So now, I’m not only burdened with secrets I didn’t want to know in the first place, but I feel like I’m failing all the groups of students I service in most areas of the curriculum.

I haven’t even touched the needs of my students and their families.  I have 5 students with special needs of one sort or another and 20 more students who vary from extremely needy to caddy to ultra-competitive.  And the parents–it seems that the more students they put in my classroom, the more parents feel like they should expect of me.  I have parents who’d like a daily email of how their child did that day to parents who think I’m pushing their child too hard to parents who think their child isn’t being challenged enough to parents who would like their child’s red words tested on the same day each week, “if that’s okay”…the list is far longer than this.  It’s almost as if I am no longer a professional with research and years of experience to back up how my classroom operates, I’m a glorified babysitting service that will hand you a note at the end of the day letting you know when Joey ate, pooped, and passed his spelling test.

As judgmental as this statement sounds, the breakdown of the American family and our economy is what I believe has directly affected my experiences in the classroom.  Parents don’t have time between working 3 jobs or running the siblings to every little skill class they can enroll their children in to read with their kids at night or study math flash cards–it’s now my job, and they want a weekly report proving that I’ve done it.  They don’t have time to challenge their intelligent children or help their struggling kid with math–also my job, and have I individualized the curriculum to meet the needs of their child?  Better question yet–have you individualized your family life style to accommodate YOUR child?

I have been praised by several parents who acknowledge how hard I work and I do feel that my best efforts are appreciated and in most cases, respected.  I’m just fried, I know me and I know I can’t do this year over and over again the next 20 years.  This post returns to where it began–I’m tired.  Tired of second guessing myself, parents, co-workers, and administration.  It was reported to me in high school that by the time I was 60, it was predicted that I would change professional careers 3 times.  I am 32, and for the first time in my life, I believe that prediction could come true.