Choosing Happiness

"It is amazing how much of a deeper love I am attaining for a school subject simply because I have teachers who show how much they care." 

I read this in a student paper today. It touched a very sensitive chord in my heart.  

Confession: I have been teaching for eleven years.  When I chose to continue teaching instead of going on to get my PhD, I was told that I was making a mistake.  If I wanted to get anywhere, I would have to have my doctorate.  All I wanted to do was teach.  

Then my health progressively deteriorated.  I ran out of money. I ran out of energy.  I almost ran out of caring.  For a great while, I have been trying to pull myself out of a deep well of teaching depression.  Luckily, my personal life was practically idyllic, other than not being married,  and the care I was receiving from doctors so personalized that I was able to survive. If it had been otherwise,  I think I would have stayed in that dark place indefinitely.  I was beating myself up to be the best teacher I could and I wasn't getting paid enough to live.  I had to take on three jobs sometimes just to make ends meet.  I had three semesters of some really tough students and some dire health problems.  I began to hate teaching school.  I was stuck in a viscous scarcity cycle of financial and physical trauma. I decided to leave teaching and enter the corporate world.  

But I couldn't find a job.

I was severely underemployed, but I kept teaching because I didn't want to leave the only income I had.  It was really hard. When I started teaching I was so bright eyed and bushy tailed.  My mentor warned me I would burn out, become cynical.  Guess what, I did. I went from being so open-hearted, to feeling like I had to protect myself constantly from the germs, the stress, the criticism, the lack of support. 

Then last year in January my best friend called.  She had recently moved back to Arizona to be with her kids after graduating with an illustration degree.  Things were not going well. She couldn't find a job.  She was deeply depressed. I sat in my car and watched the clouds lowering over Utah Lake, and listened to her talk it out.  Then she said that we should go to a writing conference.  I had not told her about my own financial stress or about my current health situation.  Before I could tell her no, I said, "Okay. I don't know how, but okay."  We both cried and made each other promises that we would help each other to make GOOD ART no matter what, and that when we made a million dollars we would take good care of each other.  You know, all the promises you make to your best friend. 

And things began to change. 

What would ensue was another really horrific year of financial and physical trauma.  And yet.  My attitude had changed. I had something to look forward to.  I had something to write about.  I started sharing my ideas with my students.  I opened up about how I felt and why things were hard.  I felt my heart opening.  I started working with my doctor on changing some pretty ingrained ideas about myself and what my life had to be like.  I started to let things go.  I approached teaching in a different way.  I set more firm boundaries and then went with the flow.  

Circumstances had not changed.  I was the one who changed.  

I worked on healing some really important relationships:  pouring love and sunshine on the people in my life, trying to show gratitude, and gracefully receiving help when it was offered.  I looked for the good in my students and realized that it had always been there.  I forgave.  The people in my life didn't change; I did.  I got closer to my friends. I made lots of therapeutic phone calls where I actually talked about how I honestly felt.  My friends didn't walk away; they stayed.  I got closer to my family. I made lots of calls and wrote lots of cards I gave what I could and stopped feeling so bad about what I couldn't do.  

At the beginning of this semester, January, one of my students approached me after class.  She had been my student the previous semester and was taking me for English 2010.  She said that she just wanted to thank me for helping her have such a good experience.  She said that I was the first teacher in her life who actually showed that I cared about her.  Knowing that I was working just as hard a she was to make the class successful changed things for her.  In my heart, I saw how much I had changed from the bitter, sick, and tired person I was two years ago.  It wasn't like I was a bad teacher, but I had closed myself off from them.  All the warmth and love was gone because I just couldn't feel it anymore.  Here I was in almost the same circumstances, and I was so different.  And yet I wasn't.  I was back to who I was before the trauma.  My best friend is my best friend because she was my student and I was a loving caring person and we took a chance on each other.  

As I sit here blogging and grading today, I realize that we may not be able to control our circumstances, but we can control our response. I knew this truth.  I supposedly lived this truth.  But when I read my student's comment about how much love she feels in my class in just the first few weeks of the semester, I realize that I have changed my response.  Is it hard to do?  Oh yes.  Is it worth is. 

Oh yes. 

Keep choosing happiness my peeps. 

The Happiness Project

Our focus in Relief Society (my church's women's organization) this year is Happiness.  I have decided that I am going to keep track of one thing every day that made me happy, and I am going to focus my blog on happiness.  The Lord and Heidi Porter must have known that I would need this.  January has historically been physically and financially fraught with danger for me.  Currently I am struggling with money--there just isn't any until I get paid in February.  So I am trying to focus on the intangibles that make life worth it.  I really liked this TED talk.  I hope it give you some inspiration.

Adventures

So . . .
True Confessions.
I am not usually a fan of adventures.  Spontaneous ones. And isn't that the very definition of adventure?

Well actually, the definition of adventure is:

adventure

[ad-ven-cher] 

noun

1.

an exciting or very unusual experience.

2.

participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises:

the spirit of adventure.

3.

a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

4.

a commercial or financial speculation of any kind; venture.

5.

Obsolete.

1. peril; danger; risk.
2. chance; fortune; luck.

I get anxious sometimes.  I get tired sometimes. I am never sure how I am going to feel. It is part of having a chronic illness.  There is great fear of flare ups. That fear:  I think I get stuck in ruts. 

Wednesday night we had an adventure.  One of the perks of being underemployed (hey, I have to find the positive in everything) is that I don't work Monday, Wednesday, or Friday this semester.  I am hoping that will lead to another job eventually, but until then I have lovely days to sit and be still and just regenerate.  Tangent: I love the word regenerate, it makes me feel all Doctor-ish.  

So Wednesday.  Jennie, my newish roommate gets home and is ready for an adventure.  My old roommate and BFF Evon shows up and suddenly we are on our way to thrift store to check out an old record player stereo. The whereabouts of said thrift store shall remain undisclosed for reasons that will become clear later.

Evon has this great old mini pickup Toyota truck.  The three of us squeezed into it: Evon driving, Jennie in the middle holding the vinyl records that we are going to test the stereo speakers with,  and me hanging out the passenger side window.   There was much giggling and singing and shouting to pedestrians.   Shocking behavior really.

The thrift store has the smell of must and dust and disinfectant.  It is quite large with non-descript white-ish floor tiles and ceilings with exposed heating and air conduits. The stereo was in the front bank of windows.  It was seven o'clock at night and so the sun was beating in the west facing windows with a vengeance.  The stereo was the classic seventies style wood job, weighing a ton, and tricked out with lattices, decorative hardware, and only one functional purpose: house the innards of the record player.  We were quickly informed that that was NOT a stereo. It was a vintage 1974 hi-fi with a brand new stylus and AM/FM radio. We were informed by the thrift shop guy.  During the whole transaction, he was ubiquitous and perspiring.  A nice enough fellow with a lot of detailed superfluous knowledge about antiquated things.  He boasted that he was more into movies, but when he was younger he was into the vinyl scene before the Hipsters ruined it.  Since he couldn't have been much older than I, this discussion became weird very quickly.  

I was just being nice.  I mean, I am a nice person. When a person speaks to me, I try to politely engage.  This polite engagement was taken a go-ahead for some very awkward attempts at flirting. 

Thrift-Store Guy:  So, you two ladies roommates or  . . . .

Me: Yeah, we are roommates.

Thrift-Store Guy: So do you live around here in these student complexes?

Me:  . . . . ?!

Jennie: No, we live in a house clear in South Provo.

Thrift-Store Guy:  Well, if you ladies take this piece, I can deliver it to your doorstep for you.  We can just find a truck and I can . . . 

Jennie:  Well, we have to see if we can get this thing working. 

Thrift-Store Guy: makes many declarations that the guy he bought it from said it was in VINTAGE condition and that the stylus is brand new, etc, etc, etc

Me: Oh.

Jennie finally gets it to work. It does sound good. Jennie looks excited as she dances around the Billy Joel.  Evon starts singing from across the store, and I sing harmony quietly and bounce around from foot to foot.  

Thrift-Store Guy: (goes and turns the music down) We don't want to disturb the other customers. You know, I would be willing to negotiate a price with you if you want to take it. (looks at me).

Me:  She is the one buying. (Pointing Jennie)

Evon is looking at books and not so quietly laughing at me and the Thrift-Store Guy's flirting. When he goes to the back of the store, briefly, Jennie  teases me that if I put on some charm that we could probably get the hi-fi for twenty bucks.  

I am not amused.

My former and current roommates break out into belly laughs.

Thrift Guy comes back, I quickly go to look at the books.

Jennie: I'll take it for $27.50.

Thrift-Store Guy: How about $30.90?

Jennie: (laughing) How about $28?

Thrift-Store Guy: $29.70.

Jennie: Sold! (The asking price was $35.00)

Jennie quickly calls her brother and gets him commit to helping us get it up the stairs of our condo, but the Thrift Store Guy doesn't know it is her brother, so when she ends the conversation with "Bye, I love you." Thrift Store Guy turns all of his unbridled attention on me.  

They wheel the 1974 VINTAGE hi-fi, which has wheels!?!, to the door of the store. Jennie goes outside to keep the door open, and leaves me with TSG, who starts to hit on me.

TSG: So do you go to thrift stores a lot? I could  . . . . Oh, getting this over the door jamb is going to be difficult.

As he pauses to reposition the gargantuan wooden coffin of a hi-fi, Jennie winks at me from outside and strikes a provocative pose.  I shake my head in fear and trembling.  

Then the nicest couple walks by and the guy offers to help us get the hi-fi into Evon's truck. From there I just try to avoid TSG and focus on holding the records.  

For the rest of the evening Evon and Jennie joke about TSG, who they have christened Thrift Store Beau.   Then we talk about the scrapes we have all gotten into with strange people because we are too nice.  It is a lovely evening.  Twilight falls and there are dragonflies soaring around us.  The local Scout troupe has put up American flags for 9/11.  

Later as we listen to Dionne Warwick on the Vintage 1974 hi-fi, I realize that it has been a pretty good adventure. 

The Purge

It is an interesting thing to raise up the darkest parts of your childhood.  It is cathartic.  It is weird.  It is maddening.

It is necessary.

When this story stopped being about me and became about Abigail, a strange thing happened.  I was able to write the pain, but not get consumed by it.  I have been singed, but not consumed.  When we got back from WIFYR, Lee worked in my room while I was out and about.  When I came back from church on Sunday she said she had been looking at my collection: my books, my pictures, my stuff. She turned to me and said:

We are hoarders.

I laughed and she laughed. And then we looked at each other. It is true.

The conversation progressed over the next few weeks and late one night we had a deep discussion about what books had become for us.  Don't get me wrong. Books are wonderful.  But books had become more than just pages.  They were symbols, evidence of survival.  Proof of worth.

There is an old Simon and Garfunkel song: "I am a rock, I am an island."

The lyrics go like this:
I have my books, and my poetry to protect me.
I am shielded in my armor.
Hiding in my room,
safe within my womb,
I touch no one and no one touches me.


 . . .
Woah.

Yeah.  So. Huh.

I don't need things to prove that I am a person of worth.  I don't need books as a symbol of my intelligence.  I feel like I am doing some deep healing here.  And as with any major change of behavior, there has been some blow back.

"There are a lot of worse things to hoard than books."
"How many books are you getting rid of?  What if you need them?"
"Are you just going to dump them at the thrift store? Don't you think that is a little irresponsible?"

You don't have to have the pages to still have the story in you.  Those experiences are priceless and they will always be with me.  

I went to my bookshelves and I pulled all the books that I haven't re-read in the last five years. I am a compulsive re-reader. If I haven't read it again yet, I am not going to.  I got rid of the books that I wasn't ever going to read, but were on my shelves because it was a book and that is what I do: collect books.  I got rid of teaching books that I am never going to use again.  Old editions.  You may not be able to see it but there are 220 books in those bags.  They are two deep and three tall.  

It may not look like it, but this is a huge change for my bookshelves.  I am not going to get rid of all my books.  But I want them to mean something, something healthy.  A lot of my fellow writers have been writing about the need to divest ourselves of stuff.  Maybe it is a byproduct of creation.  Make new stuff, get rid of the old stuff.  

Write hard and clear about what hurts. ~ Ernest Heminway