Days 121 - 127

Post date: Oct 31, 2016 6:00:35 PM

TUESDAY - MONDAY

Happy Halloween! What a fun holiday! I can't wait to go trick or treating with the kids. In my department, we are Dr. Who and the Silence. One of my co-workers is the Silence. Every time I see him, I make tick marks on my arms. I'm covered in tick marks. It has really been a lot of fun.

I've been thinking a lot about my inner child. I never really had a chance to be a kid. I was the thing in the corner no one acknowledged. I was left to my own devices. I don't remember going to parks. I did go sit by my uncle's grave a lot. In middle school, we were by a park, but I was too cool to go.

I find solace sitting on a swing. It's probably why the main character in my book, Amarea, swings a lot when she is sad. In my new story, Jacob also finds peace sitting on a swing. I had fun spending three weeks writing a 10,000-word early chapter book. I laughed a lot. I think like a 7-year-old. I think this is because at seven, I was unwanted and unloved. I'm creating happy moments where I had none. My inner child is oozing out of me in the form of words and stories.

I always knew I was a good writer, but now, I want to write all the time. It is what I believe my calling in life is. Now, I love, LOVE teaching. Teaching scratches my codependent itch. I am in total control. Luckily, I've had enough training, both in school and professional development, that I am a good teacher. I am not a demanding, my way or get the heck out, kind of teacher.

I am becoming a better teacher through this process. I don't need to sway anyone to my way of thinking. I am just sharing my knowledge. It feels different.

I had a seminary training. In it, I was told, have them fall in love with the material, not with you. I have a firm testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love my Savior. I am a dynamic teacher. I get super excited. My enthusiasm needs to be for the material, which it is, but sometimes, well, I get carried away. I am more focused on the lessons and less on me, which is good.

I've also been reading a lot of other books lately. I'm striving to understand stuff I don't seem to understand. Someone directed me to the book, Not Just Friends, by Shirley Glass. In this book about relationships, I really understood what intimacy was. I read what it was. I felt it. It was like light bulb moments throughout the entire book. I learned a lot about safe guarding my relationships. Setting boundaries or walls around what is most sacred and important. I get it now. Or at least from what I read in the book. Sharing oneself. The little things in the day. Sharing time and energy. Listening. Being there. Understanding, even when I don't. A smile, a nod, a touch. Daily interactions. Hopes, dreams, love. Feeling.

That's probably the word I've missed most in my life, feeling. What was I feeling at seven when my family hated me? What was I feeling when my step-dad came after me in a drunken rage? What was I feeling when people spat on me? What was I feeling when they called me names and pushed me? What was I feeling when I was told I deserved it? I wasn't feeling anything. I wasn't allowed to feel.

I carried that norm with me, into my marriage and my family. I checked lots of boxes and did lots of things, but I didn't feel. I had moments of happiness, but never joy. Just one crisis to another. Panic was my feeling. Anger was my feeling.

I got mad the other day. It scared me. I had every right to be mad, it is an honest feeling. The ferocity of it scared me. Then I thought, Geez, this doesn't really matter, why are you mad? And then I wasn't. I wasn't controlled by it any more.

Feeling the Holy Ghost is in the quiet between the notes and the silence between the words. It is good to have quiet...(Just not the Silence...so many tick marks.)